Shillong, Sept 13: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Monday said leave would soon be granted to the state’s Director General of Police (DGP), R. Chandranathan. Reacting to a query during a press briefing, Sangma said that there was no confusion on the issue.

“The DGP has met me and told me that he had applied for leave. A system is followed in order to process it and that process is going on and soon… his leave as per his desire will be given to him,” he informed.

On the question being raised on the timing of the DGP’s leave application, the Chief Minister however said people can question in many ways and that he has nothing to say about it.

“If an individual desire to go for leave it could be for health ground, it could be for personal ground, as a government employee he is entitled to it and as a government it is our job to give it to him if he is entitled to it and that’s the way we are seeing it. Therefore he applied for the leave, the processing is going on,” he said.

Sangma also maintained that the decision to grant leave to the DGP has nothing to do with the current situation.

“He (DGP) has applied for the leave at a personal level and I’ve agreed to it and the process of granting that is on right now,” he reiterated.

Growing pressure for DGP’s suspension

The DGP’s leave application has also come at a time when there was a growing demand for his suspension to ensure free and fair investigation into the police firing incident that led to the death of the former HNLC leader Cherishterfield Thangkhiew on August 13, 2021.

The Sur Ki Nong Mawlai and residents of different parts of the state have also demanded the suspension of the SP of East Jaintia Hills and SP (Traffic) of East Khasi Hills.

Law and order under control 

Chief Minister on Monday informed that the overall law and order situation in the state is in control. He said the government is monitoring things in a very detailed manner to ensure that the situation does not escalate.

On whether the judicial inquiry has started the investigation, Sangma said the inquiry is already in place.

“As far as my knowledge is that because I am not directly involved in that but Chief Secretary had already had a conversation with the judge who is heading this particular judicial inquiry and the process had already started in the past three days now. So beyond that in the last three days after he took charge of the inquiry, I have not specifically had a review meeting on that but I think we need to give him some time to start the process but the process has started,” he shared.