Jowai, Nov 23: Meghalaya lost 5 innocent souls and Assam lost one forest guard in the indiscriminate firing by Assam police on the villagers of Mukroh village on Tuesday morning while they were chasing a timber truck. However, there could have been more in the list causalities if they hadn’t acted fast and ran for their lives, deep into the forest even as bullets flew past them, and among those was the MDC of Barato Mukroh constituency, Aiborlang Shadap.
Shadap received a call at 5 am from Mukroh headman about Assam police vehicle entering into Meghalaya territory with their rifles. He immediately set-off but not before calling the SP of West Jaintia Hills to ask about the presence of Assam police in the area.
He recalled that he tried to request the Assam Forest Range Officer to try to pacify the Assam Police personnel to avoid any clash. “It was during that dialogue which went on for 2 hrs, I saw that the dialogue was getting heated up, the crowd weren’t willing to listen and that was when the firing took place,” recalled Shadap.
The MDC fled towards the forest and hid in the forest. He hesitated to come out till things were normal. He also complained that despite numerous phone calls made to the district administration, they took nearly 3 hours to turn up with the forces.
Along with Shadap several others like the residents and the pressure groups are demanding for a police outpost to protect the residents living in border areas.
