Shillong limps back to normal
AFTER VIOLENCE Curfew relaxed in Meghalaya capital even as CM blames unidentified groups for the clashes SHILLONG:
Curfew was relaxed for seven hours in violence-hit Shillong on Sunday which allowed people to stock up on essentials and municipal workers to clean up stones and pieces of bricks left behind by rioting mobs.
Meghalaya chief minister Conrad Sangma blamed unidentified groups for the violence. “We have understood that there are people who are funding this agitation. Expensive alcohol and money is being given. We will take stern action against the plotters,” Sangma told NDTV on Sunday.
Sangma also said it wasn’t a communal but a land issue. “The issue is of land and that has been there for past 30 years. There are claims and counterclaims, and we are committed to amicable solution”, he said.
Curfew was clamped in 14 localities of the capital city of Meghalaya on Friday hours after an altercation between a Khasi boy and Punjabi women. Rumours fed the anger and violence continued on Friday and Saturday. Sunday was tense but peaceful.
The administration and Union government also dismissed as rumours reports of gurdwaras or other Sikh institutions being damaged in Meghalaya.
“Beware of rumour-mongers & troublemakers. There was no damage to any Gurdwara or other institutions belonging to the Sikh minority in Meghalaya,” Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju tweeted.
On May 31, residents of Shillong’s Them Metor area, most of them Sikhs, and employees of state-run buses belonging to the Khasi community clashed after an argument between some women and a handyman of Shillong Public Transport Service bus.
Trouble escalated when rumours spread on social media that the boy had succumbed to injuries, prompting a group of bus drivers to converge on Them Metor, also known as Punjabi Line.
As the violence spread, curfew was imposed in 14 localities early on Friday and night curfew in the entire state capital. The restriction fuelled anger and a mob attacked security personnel who fired tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.
Around 600 tear gas shells were fired till Saturday night, a police official said on condition of anonymity. The Union home ministry on Saturday rushed six companies of paramilitary forces to help police to restore normalcy in the troubled areas.
Sikhs have been living in Them Metor since the British time. A sizeable section of them are employees with the Shillong municipal board.
As their population has increased, so has the unease with locals, who see them as illegal residents. Though Them Metor is part of the Shillong Cantonment Board, land rights are vested with the Mylliem Syiemship (traditional chieftain).
The relocation of Sikhs continues to be a challenge. The fact was also acknowledged by BJP’s Delhi MLA Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who led a Sikh delegation to Shillong.
He met several families at Them Metor locality and also CM Sangma. Sirsa, who is also the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee general secretary, tweeted that Sikhs were safe and posted a video of his visit. There was trouble but the Sikhs were safe and the state government was doing everything to ensure their safety, he said. “...resorting to violence will not solve the issue. What we need is a lasting solution by sitting across the table,” the Rajouri Garden MLA said.
China has welcomed as “positive” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks at a Singapore forum that India-China cooperation is good for the world’s future.
Delivering the keynote address at the 17th Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Modi called bilateral ties as layered, and said he firmly believed that Asia and world will have a “better future if India and China work together with trust and confidence, keeping in mind each other’s interests”.
A top Chinese general who led Beijing’s delegation to the forum called it a “positive” assessment of ties between the two countries. “Modi gave a positive assessment of China-Indian relations in his speech,” lieutenant general He Lei told state media.
It was also noticed in Beijing that Modi avoided any mention of the Quad — comprising US, Japan, Australia and India — in his speech and instead spoke out against trade protectionism in a not-so-veiled reference to the US.
Modi’s statement and the Chinese response comes a week before the PM is set to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Qingdao where he is also set for a meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The exchange of positive statements ahead of the SCO summit continues to mark the turnaround in bilateral ties after they were strained during the Doklam standoff last year.
Chinese academics said Modi’s speech was a positive movement in ties, but added that the PM could be sending positive signals to ensure he attracts more votes. “Modi’s remarks sent a signal of goodwill toward improving China-India ties, which had been soured by a military standoff last year,” Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of International Relations, told the Global Times.
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