Meghalaya police on Monday arrested the president of the North Eastern Hill University Students’ Union for allegedly assaulting an assistant professor inside his office chamber last week.
An official of the East Khasi Hills district police told The Telegraph that the union president, Sandy Sohtun, was picked up from the university campus on Monday afternoon and subsequently arrested on charges of assault.
Details of the arrest were not shared.
Sandy was arrested based on a complaint lodged by Dr. Alok Singh, a Hindi professor at NEHU, with the Mawkynroh Outpost in Shillong on Friday.
In his complaint, Singh alleged that Sandy and five others “forcibly locked him inside my chamber in the department. During this incident, they physically assaulted him and threatened to kill him by holding a scissor to his neck”. The incident occurred around 4.45pm on Thursday.
Singh further claimed he had “sustained injuries” to his “head, legs, and hands” and was “extremely distressed and traumatised” because of the “violent attack”.
He added that he now feels “unsafe and fearful within the campus premises” and sought “immediate and appropriate action” from the police to ensure his safety and uphold the dignity of the institution.
Singh, 33, hails from Uttar Pradesh’s Sultanpur district and joined NEHU as a permanent faculty member in the Hindi department in 2023. “I have spent 13 years in Shillong. I have done my MPhil and PhD from NEHU,” he told this newspaper.
Established in 1973, NEHU is one of the leading institutes in the region, located
in Shillong.