Ex-Assam CM Mahanta indicted for ‘secret killings’

Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was indicted by the Justice K N Saikia Commission for ‘secret killings’ while another probe found they were cases of ‘revenge killings’.

Two-time former Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta was on Thursday indicted by the Justice K N Saikia Commission for ‘secret killings’ while another probe found they were cases of ‘revenge killings’.

The commission’s report, tabled in the state Assembly In Guwahati on Thursday by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, stated that ‘there is enough evidence to show that the then Home Minister (Mahanta held the home portfolio) was at the helm of these extra-constitutional killings’.

The killings were carried out by masked men who would ‘knock at the door to wake up the inmates of the house and then drag them and shoot them dead or take them away and secretly kill and throw their bodies somewhere’, it said.

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The commission, formed in 2005 to enquire into the killing of 11 people between 1998 to 2001 when Mahanta headed the AGP government said, there was ‘lurking evidence of police and surrendered ULFA militants nexus in the killings, some of the latter being constituted into an extra constitutional authority and used as executioners’.

Stating that the firearms used by the killers were normally found with the police and military personnel, the Saikia Commission said police was patrolling the area prior and after the killings, but not when they took place.

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