Guwahati, May 16 : Accused of swindling a thousand crore from the NC Hills Autonomous Council, R H Khan and Mohit Hojai, along with four associates, will have to spend some more time in prison with a special court here rejecting their bail petitions on Thursday. They have been in jail since 2009.
Khan, then deputy director of the social welfare department, Hojai, then chief executive member of the NC Hills Autonomous Council and Ahshringdaw Warisa, the self-styled 'deputy commander-in-chief' of the now-disbanded militant outfit DHD (J), had been helped in executing the scam by three others. They had moved the lower court, pleading for an 'interim bail' earlier.
They were among the 15 who had been named as 'prime accused' by National Investigation Agency (NIA) in the Rs-1000 crore money laundering scam. They had been accused of siphoning off huge amounts of government development funds to DHD (J) for procuring arms and ammunitions to wage a war against India.
However, the lower court's order came as a shock for all six, as the NIA had given 'no objection certificates' (NOCs) to their interim bail pleas. The agency had also said it had no problem with the court granting them interim bail.
"The court rejected their bail plea to help the ongoing probe into the matter. It has the right to reject a bail plea even after getting NOCs," said Ashim Talukdar, counsel for Warisa.
Talukdar added the petitioners were considering moving the Gauhati high court.
In 2011, the lower court had rejected similar bail pleas of DHD (J)'s 'chairman' Jewel Gorlosa and its 'commander-in-chief' Niranjan Hojai in the same case. However,, both men had later been granted interim bail by the high court on the condition that they would take part in a peace parley with the government. After the success of the peace talks, Garlosa disbanded his militant outfit in 2013.
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