A top leader of the outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) who escaped nine months ago from a Meghalaya hospital has been re-arrested in Kolkata, police said here Wednesday.
Phyrnai Swer alias Pastor, a former Meghalaya police constable-turned-lieutenant of the HNLC, was captured by the anti-terrorism squad of the Kolkata police, a police official said.
Swer's associate Nanda Kishore Thakur has been detained by the Kolkata police for helping in providing shelter to the escaped rebel.
"We have been informed that Swer was arrested by the Kolkata police Tuesday evening from the Kalikapur area in West Bengal," Mariahom Kharkrang, the district police chief of East Khasi Hills, told IANS.
He said a Meghalaya police team has left for Kolkata to take custody of Swer.
Swer, who escaped from the North East Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences in Meghalaya July 17, is accused of involvement in several criminal cases, including masterminding abductions for ransom in the coal-belt areas of the state's East Jaintia Hills district.
Meghalaya police arrested him Jan 24, 2013 from his wife's residence at Iawmusiang in Jowai town after he sneaked into India from Bangladesh.
Before joining the HNLC, Phyrnai was the chairman of a Meghalaya-based Retrieval Indigenous United Front outfit. He was arrested along with the other founding members.
The Khasi outfit is fighting for a sovereign Hynniewtrep homeland in the eastern part of Meghalaya. The HNLC stages hit-and-run operations from hideouts in Bangladesh.
Meghalaya shares a 443-km border with Bangladesh, part of which is porous, hilly and unfenced and thus prone to infiltration.
