Assault on minor: Meghalaya MLA remanded in custody

SHILLONG: Meghalaya legislator Julius Dorphang, who was wanted for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, was arrested from his hideout in neighbouring Assam and remanded on Saturday in police custody for five days.

GUWAHATI: A rebel-turned-MLA from Meghalaya, accused of raping a14-year-old girl twice, was arrested in Guwahati late on Friday night.

Dorphang, 52, was taken to Shillong where the court of magistrate B Kharumnuid sent him to five days’ police custody.

“We assisted a team of Meghalaya police in arresting the MLA from ISBT in Gorchuk area about 11pm on Friday,” Guwahati commissioner of police Hiren Nath said.

The Meghalaya police had on Friday issued a lookout notice for Dorphang, believed to have hidden in Assam with help from leaders of other militant outfits he had befriended during his underground days in Bangladesh two decades ago.

Dorphang went into hiding after a waiter of the guesthouse owned by Lyngdoh’s son was arrested last month for trafficking the girl allegedly for high-profile clients. Dorphang, a father of two daughters, was identified as one of those who sexually exploited her.

A case was subsequently lodged against the MLA. On January 4, a Shillong local court issued a nonbailable arrest warrant against him while the State Commission for Child Rights Protection filed another complaint for raping the same girl in a resort at Umium.