7 arrested for IPS officer’s son murder in Sikkim

Gangtok: Sikkim police have arrested all the seven accused, including son of a senior IAS officer, on charges of killing Rakshit Singh Meena, a third year engineering student, after a fight outside a pub-cum-night club at Gangtok on Sunday. They were produced before the court on Monday and taken on a five-day judicial remand for further investigation into the incident. All the seven arrested youths have been booked under IPC Section 302, 201 and 34 with capital Sadar police station in Gangtok. Those arrested in the high profile incident are Gurmey Wangchuk (35), son of urban development department secretary Topzor Dorjee Bhutia, Sonam Namgyal (31), son of ex-power secretary Pema Namgyal, Bidhan Pradhan (31), Phurba Tamang (29), Karna Hung Subba (25) and Roden Wangdi Sherpa (31) of Darjeeling Talking to HT over phone, Sikkim police superintendent (East) Manoj Tiwari said Meena, a student at Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT), Majhitar, was in Gangtok to celebrate the birthday of a friend Arindam Parmar. 

The incident took place between 1 and 1.30am post Saturday midnight when a brutal attack, allegedly led by Gyurmey Wangchuk and involving six others outside Café Live & Loud on Tibet Road, left him dead. Rakshit was the only son of Bihar cadre IPS officer and Purnia range DIG Bachchu Singh Meena, a native of Dausa district in Rajasthan. Parmar is the main eyewitness in the case, along with four other friends. All the accused were identified on the basis of mobile phone video shot by Parmar and corroboration of the incident by the bouncers on duty. Wangchuk who was the first to be arrested, confessed knocking down Rakshit. His other firends were later arrested from different places on Sunday. On the fateful night, Rakshit and his friends had checked in at a local hotel at Arithang area here before leaving for the nightclub. Inside the club, the accused persons alleged, that the engineering students had teased their female friends and attacked them. Rakshit was waiting for his friends outside the pub, where around seven men started beating him and chased his other friends from the spot. 

They later returned and picked up Rakshit in an unconscious state and rushed to the hotel at Arithang. He was pronounced dead on arrival at the central referral hospital (Tadong) in the wee hours of Sunday. Tiwari said, after performing the postmortem, Rakshit's body was handed over to his parents, who left for Bagdogra airport by road from Gangtok. Rakshit's body was taken to Delhi by air and from there to Dausa in Rajasthan. DIG Meena and his wife reached Gangtok on Sunday afternoon. The wife of the IPS officer fainted as soon as she heard the news of her son's death.