The vice-president of the state unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Meghalaya, Bernard Marak was on Thursday sent to police custody for six days.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) in the state’s West Garo Hills district sent Marak to police custody in the case related to the recovery of explosives from his farmhouse in Tura.
Marak was on Wednesday arrested by Meghalaya police again and was produced before the court the next day.
Police had recovered large quantities of explosives from Marek’’s farmhouse, which he allegedly also used as a ‘brothel’.
As many as 35 gelatin sticks, 100 detonators, four crossbows and 15 arrows were recovered by the police concealed inside a “secret chamber” in the farmhouse.
Notably, Bernard Marak was the chairman of a now disbanded militant outfit before entering politics. He had more than 25 criminal cases against his name since the 2000s.
Uttar Pradesh police had initially taken the Meghalaya BJP vice-president into custody on July 26 after Meghalaya police had issued a lookout notice for him in the ‘brothel’ case.
Meghalaya police accused him of running a prostitution racket from his Tura farmhouse after they raided his Rimpu Bagan farmhouse on the night of July 22 and detained 73 people including 24 girls.
They also reportedly rescued five minors including a girl and four boys who were restrained in a room under very poor conditions.
Meghalaya police has also claimed that it managed to track down unaccounted money amounting to crores from the bank accounts of the tainted BJP leader.
Marak’s bank accounts have been frozen after his arrest, while investigation into allegations of running a prostitution racket is underway.
West Garo Hills district superintendent of police (SP) V S Rathore said, “The money in the accounts amount to a couple of crores and are unaccounted. He has failed to provide credible explanation about the money.”
“There have been regular deposits of cash in these bank accounts that continued over a long period of time,” he added.
