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Monday, May 20, 2013

Two more arrested in connection with death of student in Gangtok brawl

GANGTOK, 20 May: Two more arrests were made today by the Sikkim Police in connection with the death of a 22-year-old second year SMIT student following a brawl at Café Live & Loud here at Tibet Road on Saturday night. This takes the number of arrests in connection with the case to seven, with five of the accused picked up yesterday itself.
Two bouncers working at the Café Live & Loud were placed under arrest by the Sadar police on 19 May in connection with the murder of Rakshit Meena. The two bouncers are Phurba Tamang [29], a resident of 3rd Mile, JN Road and Karna Hang Subba [25], a resident of Lall Bazaar, Gangtok, and both have been booked under Section 302/ 34 [punishment for murder with common intent] of the Indian Penal Code, informed DIG [Range], Dr. MS Tuli, today.
The arrests were made on the basis of the statements given by the four friends of the deceased who have alleged that after the accused attacked them, and they approached the bouncers to come and intervene and stop the fight, the bouncers did nothing and took no action and instead just stood there and watched, informed the DIG.
The sequence of events of the fateful night are now available in slightly clearer detail. The quarrel is reported to have occurred at around 1:30 a.m. on the intervening night of 18 and 19 May. As per the friends of the deceased, they were attacked as they left the restaurant. It now transpires that they were left to fend for themselves [an allegation which has led to the arrest of the bouncers as well], and somehow managed to flee the spot and reach their hotel.
The victim, Rakshit, appears to have spent a very uncomfortable night and when the complications and his condition became too desperate to ignore, his friends, who had been too scared to venture out till then, decided to rush him to medical attention. They drove to STNM Hospital emergency ward first and proceeded on to Central Referral Hospital. Although officials at STNM Hospital deny this [read rejoinder on pg2], the friends have recorded in their police statement that they were told there were no free beds at STNM Hospital which is why they left for CRH. Rakshit was declared brought dead at CRH.
The five accused arrested by the police yesterday are: Gurmey Wangchuk [the main accused], Loden Sherpa, Vidhant Pradhan, Sonam Namgyal and Ugen Namgyal. They have all been booked under section 302 [punishment for murder] of the Indian Penal Code. The dead of the victim was meanwhile flown out to Rajasthan for a funeral in his ancestral home today. The 22 year old Rakshit Meena was a second year student of civil engineering at SMIT.

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