‘Brothel’ row: Militant-turned-BJP leader who is on the run noted Garo Hills face

The incident threatens to strain ties between the BJP and the leading partner in their ruling coalition, the National People’s Party (NPP).

The son of a forest official and a computer graduate from Guwahati, whose wife is a lecturer at Don Bosco College, Tura, 46-year-old Marak started his career in the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC), once a much-feared insurgent group fighting for a separate state for the Garo tribe. But soon, he broke ranks with his mentor Dilash Marak and floated a splinter group, ANVC-B, in 2011. Marak, or ‘Ada (Big Brother) Rimpu’ as he is better known, was an independent signatory to the peace agreement the Centre signed in 2014 with the ANVC.

In 2019, he returned to the BJP, following which he was elected to the Garo Hills Development Council.

Police officers say they launched an operation against the Tura “brothel” following a complaint registered in February, when a minor girl was allegedly sexually assaulted there. A case was registered against the BJP leader under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act, 1956.

Meghalaya Police busted a huge sex racket & arrested 73 persons in West Garo Hills dist & seized 36 vehicles, 414 liquor bottles, 49 mobile phones, sharp weapons & other items during the raid conducted at Rimpu Bagan area in the dist: Vivekanand Singh Rathore, SP, West Garo Hills pic.twitter.com/UVGr1nmcmr

— ANI (@ANI) July 23, 2022

Calling the charges “cooked up”, Marak has accused Chief Minister Conrad Sangma of going after him for his vocal criticism of Sangma and his family. The BJP has called Marak “a victim of political vendetta”.

In the past few years, Marak, a fierce advocate of tribal issues, has often spoken out against the state government. In 2018, he took on the Sangmas in their family bastion, South Tura seat, contesting on a TMC ticket against Conrad’s younger sister Agatha. He finished a distant sixth and lost his deposit.

Since then, he has on several occasions spoken about wanting to contest against Conrad Sangma from South Tura. He has also accused Conrad and Agatha (now an MP) of misappropriation of funds through “ghost projects” in their constituencies.

To many, the charges against Marak don’t come as much of a surprise. He has often faced accusations of links to organised crime syndicates in Garo Hills. Says a government source, on the condition of anonymity: “People vote for him because they are scared of him.”

Like other rebel leaders in the Northeast who come overground and contest electoral politics following peace deals with the government, Marak took the route in 2014. A security officer in the government says that this meant better leverage for Marak, even while “never really being a conventional underground leader”. “He never went to the jungle. He was in-charge of communication for the outfit.”

Marak soon proved a shrewd politician. In the largely tribal state, cleaved along ethnic lines, his sound knowledge on tribal issues helped. “Sixth Schedule laws, land rights, he knows it all thoroughly. He speaks about all this often, and it is this knowledge that helps him sway the tribal population in his favour,” the government source says.

A security official says that while Marak has “smart social skills”, it would be wrong to say he is popular. “He has a following mostly among thugs and other bad elements.”

While the BJP said on Sunday that they “fully support Marak”, on Monday, no one in the party or the NPP was willing to talk about him. All BJP members in the state said was that Marak was “a good and committed worker” .

The SP of West Garo Hills, under which Tura falls, Vivekananda Singh, rubbished the allegations of political pressure. “There is no political pressure whatsoever on me. No one has given me any direction to target him. Our action is based on the statement of the minor victim,” he said.