A former Meghalaya minister, who hit the headlines in July for having escaped from the clutches of his abductors, has been arrested on the basis of a militant's confession that he had paid money to a banned outfit for getting his wife abducted and killed, police said.

Kopin Chandra Boro was arrested on Friday night from his Titrikilla residence in West Garo Hills district in Meghalaya, Director General of Police L Sailo told PTI in Shillong.

Boro was on Saturday taken to Goalpara district in Assam and produced before the chief judicial magistrate, who remanded him to ten days police custody.

Goalpara Superintendent of Police G M Choudhury said the police had evidence that Boro had paid militants to kill his wife.

The arrest was a sequel to a joint raid by the Assam and Meghalaya police at Boro's Shillong residence on July 24 from where four persons were nabbed for their alleged connections with militants.

Of the four, three were released the next day while one, Amulya Rabha, was arrested for his alleged links with the United Liberation Front of Assam.

During interrogation, Rabha alleged that Boro had paid militants to get his wife Cheina Singh Boro killed, police said.

Boro and his wife had been abducted from Suarkona village in Assam's Goalpara district on June 14 by suspected militants.

While he managed to escape, the decomposed body of his wife was found in a jungle on June 21.

Boro is a senior Congress leader and vice-chairman of state-run Mawmluh Cherra Cement Limited.

He is the second ex-minister from Meghalaya, after Nationalist Congress Party leader Adolf 'Hitler' Marak, to have been arrested for colluding with militants.

More reports from Meghalaya