An area commander of the outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) who was arrested from Kolkata earlier this year, was today placed under preventive detention by the Meghalaya government, an official said.
"We have placed Phyrnailang Swer under the Meghalaya Preventive Detention Act (MPDA) for his involvement in criminal activities in the past and for maintaining links with outlawed militant organisation," East Khasi Hills district magistrate Sanjay Goyal told PTI.
Earlier in the day, a local court here had granted him bail in a case in which he was arrested from a hotel in Kolkata in April this year along with an aide.
The HNLC cadre had remained elusive since his escape from a high security ward at the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) hospital near here last year, until his arrest.
He was first arrested in August 2004 along with eight others when they formed a gang called Retrieval of Indigenous United Forum (RIUF).
Swer was earlier placed under the MPDA but after serving a jail term under the preventive detention, he again worked closely with the HNLC and maintained close links with its leaders in Bangladesh, the police said.
