Calm prevails in area as security tightened
Mukroh village on Wednesday wore an eerie calm, a day after six people were killed in violence there, along the disputed Assam-Meghalaya border.
Shops remained closed and streets were largely empty as most people stayed indoors.
Security personnel, in large numbers, stood guard in the village to prevent any further untoward incident.
Two persons, who are undergoing treatment at a local hospital, having received bullet injuries in the clashes on Tuesday, said they had visited the violence-hit area after learning that some of the fellow villagers were in “danger”.
Cheini Nartiang (48) was shot in his nose, and Elias Samaiang (36) in the chin.
“I saw five people falling unconscious right in front of me before getting hit myself. I don’t remember anything after that,” Samaiang told PTI, before the two left for North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong.
Violence had broken out at the Assam-Meghalaya border in the early hours of Tuesday after a truck allegedly laden with illegally felled timber was inter
cepted by forest guards from Assam. Six people, including a forest guard, were gunned down amid the clashes.
Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma had complained that the Assam police and forest guards “entered the state and resorted to unprovoked firing”.
Assam officials, however, asserted that the truck was intercepted in West Karbi Anglong district of the state by a forest department team and a mob from Meghalaya attacked the forest guards and policemen from the state, who, in a bid to bring the situation under control, opened fire.
Officials in Assam also said that a group of people from
Meghalaya vandalised and burnt down a forest office in West Karbi Anglong district, shortly after the firing took place.
Meanwhile, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Wednesday that the border is peaceful.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function in New Delhi, Sarma also asserted that the incident was no related to the long-standing border dispute between the two states.
“I am in touch with the Meghalaya CM... The Assam-Meghalaya border is peaceful and it has always been peaceful,” “Force has been used... However, in my view, it has been used a little arbitrarily...” he said.