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Guwahati:

Meghalaya’s Khasi and Jaintia hills are on high alert after two student union members were arrested on Wednesday following the deaths of two people in the state last week.

Police arrested Shanborlang Shati and Mesadapbor Skhembil, members of the Khasi Students’ Union (KSU), in connection with the killing of two men in Ichamati last week after a protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. The two men were produced in court and sent to seven days’ police custody.

The bodies of Ishan Singh and Sujit Dutta had been found close to the Bangladesh border and about 80 km from Meghalaya’s capital Shillong. Police are yet to confirm whether the killings are related to the protest.

A crowd of 300 people led by the KSU gathered at Sohra police station to protest the arrests, demanding that its cadre not be “hunted like militants”.

A police vehicle was burned after unidentified persons hurled a petrol bomb at Shillong’s Malwai police station, East Khasi Hills District police chief Rituraj Ravi said, adding that the arrests were based on “strong evidence.” “They are protesting against the arrests made and we have explained that we are investigating the two murders and law shall take its own course,” he said.

The members of Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) have written to President Draupadi Murmu over the March 27 killings, alleging the murders were a “stark reminder of the reign of terror against the non-tribal communities residing in Meghalaya.”

“Two innocent Hindus (Ishan Singh & Sujit Dutta) have been brutally murdered in Ichamati, a village in East Khasi Hills district of Meghalaya, after an anti-CAA rally. A pressure group organised an anti-CAA rally which led to the murder of two innocent Hindus by unknown miscreants, as widely reported in the media”, reads the letter.