New Delhi: Two days after the Meghalaya Police conducted a raid at Rimpu Bagan, a farmhouse-cum-homestay run by state Bharatiya Janata Party vice-president Bernard Marak, news has come of his arrest in Uttar Pradesh’s Hapur on Monday night.West Garo Hills superintendent of police Vivekananda Singh, under whose command the Saturday night raid was conducted at Marak’s farmhouse in the outskirts of Tura town rounding up at least 73 persons, told the media on Monday night that a police team from his district has been dispatched to bring him to the northeastern state. Marak was arrested hours after the Tura district court issued a non-bailable warrant against him.Singh has told The Wire from Tura that there are at least two cases pending against Marak after the raid under various sections of the IPC, “one of trafficking children (under the Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act) and the other of a minor being sexually assaulted in the farmhouse. We had apprehended him from the spot.” As per Singh, 72 people were arrested besides the minor being detained on Saturday night.State director general of police L.R. Bishnoi told the local media on Monday night that a lookout notice was issued by the Meghalaya Police following the court order which was shared with police stations across the country, leading to Marak’s detention while travelling in a private taxi in the Hapur district of UP. The BJP leader has been accused of running a ‘brothel’ from his 30-room homestay by the district police, creating a storm not just in Meghalaya but tarnishing the party’s image nationally too. Since the raid, he had been absconding, though on Sunday, July 25, Marak disclosed in a video statement released to the press that he had parked himself in Guwahati fearing for his life as the raid and the police lookout for him were due to “political vendetta” unleashed by Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma.This correspondent first came across Marak in the run-up to the 2018 Meghalaya assembly polls. Popularly called Rimpu in his home town Tura, Marak, in his 40s, is a former militant. He was the chairman of the now disbanded armed group Achik National Volunteer Council (Bernard) formed in 2012. It was a breakaway faction of the insurgent outfit Achik National Volunteer Council, which had aimed at using gun power to form a separate Garo state (Achik land) carved out of Meghalaya and the Garo-inhabited areas lacing the Assam-Meghalaya border in Goalpara district. The mother organisation, ANVC, suspended operations in 2004 after a ceasefire was signed with the government to usher in peace talks. Like most peace talks with the government, this too had hit a wall, leading leaders like Marak to remove themselves from it. Marak then formed his own faction while accusing some others of not following the peace talks through to their logical end with the government. Several young people in the region had supported his move.In 2018 when I came across Marak alias Rimpu in Tura, he was already a local politician and in the news. In June 2017, he had hit the headlines as the West Garo Hills district president of the BJP who quit the party to oppose its position on beef eating and cattle slaughter. Calling beef his food, he famously hosted a beef party at Tura’s Eden Garden. In spite of a warning for stringent action against him by Nalin Kohli, BJP’s national in charge for Meghalaya then, Marak’s action pushed the North Garo Hills district president of the party, Bachu Marak, too to leave BJP then and join Bernard Marak’s beef party. That way, Bernard Marak singlehandedly ensured that BJP’s prospects in the Garo hills was limited in the 2018 polls. The public opposition to the BJP’s beef ban, not just in the Garo areas but across Meghalaya, ultimately led the National People’s Party (NPP) led by Conrad Sangma to tread carefully and not formally announce its alliance with the BJP for the 2018 assembly elections.By the time the state was set for the 2018 assembly polls, Bernard Marak was set to contest from the Garo hills – from two constituencies, including challenging Conrad Sangma’s sister Agatha Sangma from South Tura. Days before the contest, Marak had told this correspondent that his defeat in South Tura was imminent but emphasised, “Still, I want to challenge the Conrad Sangma family in their home bastion. Nothing has been done in the Garo hills, only corruption.” In a belt where two Garo families – that of former Lok Sabha speaker Purno A. Sangma (father of chief minister Conrad Sangma) and of the then Congress chief minister Mukul Sangma – are typically talked about in the media as opposing political poles, Bernard Marak’s challenge as an independent candidate, albeit small then, to Agatha was significant in Tura considering his upright image among a section of Garo youth.As he predicted, Marak lost from both the seats in those elections. But by 2019, his local popularity pushed the BJP to bring him back to its fold, leading him to win the Garo District Autonomous Council (GDAC) elections as an executive member from the party. Since then, Marak’s rise in the BJP has been unceasing. Alongside it, he has been taking on fellow Tura native and CM Conrad Sangma’s government, both at the GDAD and state levels. Marak has been successful in taking on the NPP-led Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government on the issue of corruption in spite of his party being a minor partner in it. Even though in 2018, the Congress put up a strong fight against the NPP, since then, the party is in disarray, with several of its top leaders including chief minister Mukul Sangma jumping to another party. The empty opposition space has been fully utilised by Bernard Marak from the BJP.Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma.Photo: PTINo wonder then, following Saturday night’s raid, the buzz in the northeastern state was that it was likely ‘political vendetta’ had been unleashed against the Garo leader by the chief minister’s office. This is something that not just Marak accused Sangma of in his video statement, but was also endorsed by BJP state president Ernest Mawrie. Mawrie accused the chief minister of orchestrating the raid at Marak’s homestay and deliberately linking it to a five-month-old case based on the violation of the POSCO Act.“It looks to several people in the state as a possible politically motivated case as Rimpu (Marak) was planning to contest again from the South Tura seat in the coming assembly elections. In 2018, Agatha won the seat but she later vacated it for the chief minister and her brother Conrad Sangma as he was then an MP from Tura and didn’t contest the polls. This time, the chief minister would have contested from South Tura and Marak was readying himself to challenge him from the BJP,” a Tura-based reporter told this correspondent.Trawling local news reports throws up enough evidence of Marak taking on the NPP-led government. Most recently, he took to the local media based on an RTI reply he had received from the state government, which showed that the premises of a tribal research institute built by the Conrad government in Garo hills with central funds was the same as the GHADC museum also built with Central funds. “How can one building be shown completed in both centrally funded projects?…same building stands there as the GHADC museum as well as the Tribal Research Institute. Such engineering should be applauded with (hand) cuffs,” Marak asserted, demanding a CBI enquiry into the matter.Political observers in the state would like to hold up the BJP not accommodating NPP as an alliance partner in Manipur after the last assembly polls inspite of a standing offer by the party chief as a possible reason for tension brewing between the two NDA partners for some time now. On May 26, a day after the chief minister said BJP was free to withdraw support to his government if it deemed fit, Marak challenged him for an open debate on corruption in his government. “Let’s debate on corruption issues and the need to conduct CBI inquiry into various scams raised by the BJP. BJP is not in MDA to profit from the scams but to voice against it,” he retorted.“That the BJP allowing its state vice president to openly take on alliance partner Conrad Sangma’s government on corruption shows it is not looking at his government as its government too, but most likely wants to expand its MLA tally from one in 2018 to a few more in 2023. That NPP is going after the BJP vice president in the state shows the fight is on politically,” said the Tura-based reporter who has refused to be identified here.Talking to the media, deputy chief minister and senior NPP leader Prestone Tynsong said in Shillong on Monday, “We cannot withdraw the charges just because the accused is a BJP vice-president. The law is the same for everyone.” On being asked about political vendetta, Tysong added, “Raiding the house of ministers or political leaders is nothing new. The police raided the farmhouse after working on the case for weeks and collecting all the evidence.”The morning after the raid at the farmhouse, the West Garo Hills SP issued a press statement which he began with that POSCO case which the BJP president had referred to. It involved the rape of a minor in Tura in February 2022.“An FIR was received on February 28, 2022 to the effect that the minor daughter of the complainant was missing from home for one week and on that day, the relatives of the minor traced her along with one suspect and handed over to Tura Women Police Station. Later, it was ascertained that the minor was sexually assaulted multiple times over one week. Accordingly, a case was registered (at the Tura Women Police Station under) POSCO Act and investigated. During the recording of the statement u/s 164 CrPC, the victim girl stated in the court that she and her friend was taken to Rimpu Bagan (Marak’s farmhouse) by the main accused person and one of his friends. They hired one room and sexually assaulted her multiple times,” the senior police officer stated.On July 26, on being asked what action was taken in that POSCO case so far, Vivekananda Singh told The Wire, “At that time, the main accused was arrested.” On asked whether he was still in jail, the SP said he would have to check the status, adding, “He might have got bail by now but that is not important anymore. What is important now is we have filed cases against Marak for immoral trafficking of children and apprehension of a minor in sexual assault case. That farmhouse is a notorious place, once used for ambush by militants.” A long list of recoveries during the raid, including alcohol, condoms, etc. were part of that press release.In his defence, Marak, in his video statement, said that those youths were being hosted by him for education for free and a homestay can’t be called a ‘brothel’ just because adult couples were having a drink.What is curious though is, even while it is a case of violation of the POSCO Act, no prominent social and women rights activists have so far issued any media statement condemning it. The Wire reached out to prominent women rights activists in both Tura and Shillong only to be told by one, “We are being cautious. The pattern of things so far is making it seem like a case of only political vendetta. It is strange that nothing much has happened in the February POSCO case but suddenly the police evoked that victim’s statement in the court to go after Marak who till recently has been taking on the Sangma government on the issue of corruption.”On being asked about police taking action against Rimpu Bagan after five months, SP Vivekananda Singh told this correspondent, “We got a copy of the victim’s statement made in the court then where she mentioned she was taken by the accused to Rimpu Bagan. We began our investigation and now we will take her there to identify the room, etc.”The Wire reached out to Eimon Syiem, the chairperson of the Meghalaya State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) to ascertain whether the Commission was thus far aware of the February case under POSCO and the action taken on the matter. Without providing a direct reply, she stated the procedure, “The police always inform the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), say, for compensation, counselling and any assistance needed by the victim. We at the SCPCR get reports, though some cases come through the SCPCR first or the district Child Protection Officer (DCPO).”She added, “ALL POSCO cases are submitted on a monthly or quarterly basis by the police, except in extraordinary cases when police are asked to submit a status report as soon as possible.” Following the raid at Marak’s homestay, the Tura DCPO, she related, had informed her that the CWC had held a meeting to take stock of the arrest of minors made and whether they were sexually assaulted and would send a report to the SCPCR by Monday night. The West Garo Hills SP underlined that some CWC members even accompanied the police during the raid. “They must have informed SCPCR on this case,” he told The Wire.A local police officer who refused to be identified here told The Wire, “On Sunday, the Tura district court had to be convened for a bail hearing in this case. I have never seen such an aberration but we learnt it had to be done to grant bail immediately to over 30 people close to the ruling party including a relative of the chief minister.” The Wire, however, couldn’t independently verify the claim about the chief minister’s connection to those apprehended, though the SP confirmed to this correspondent that “over 30 people were granted bail on Sunday and released from custody late Sunday night”.Since there are at least 20 cases filed against Marak since the 2000s, it may not be soon when the arrested BJP state leader sees the light of the day outside of custody. But the question about the NPP going after the state BJP leader and a challenger to the chief minister on his home turf will linger.