From Our Correspondent
NONGSTOIN: Highly-placed officials from both Meghalaya and Assam on Wednesday held a meeting at the Langpih Batallion camp of the Assam Police on the issue of construction of a market complex by the West Khasi Hills district administration.
The meeting on Wednesday was called after Meghalaya Police personnel on Tuesday foiled an attempt made by an Assam Police team to ‘interfere’ into the construction work at Langpih.
The Assam team for Wednesday’s meeting was led by Deputy Commissioner of Kamrup, SK Roy, and PS Mahanta, Superintendent of Police of Kamrup while the Meghalaya team was led by W Nongsiej, Additional Deputy Commissioner of West Khasi Hills and R Muthu, Superintendent of Police, West Khasi Hills, accompanied by MB Tongper, Extra Assistant Commissioner. The three-hour long meeting witnessed heated debates by both sides, with Assam claiming that there should not be any permanent structure construction at the disputed border area as per the agreement between the chief ministers of Assam and Meghalaya soon after the May 14, 2010 firing incident at Langpih market.
On the other hand, the Meghalaya team argued that the State was maintaining the status quo which was sign by the chief secretaries of the two states in 2010. Nongsiej also reiterated that Meghalaya had never raised objection to the construction of a market complex, community hall and a health centre at Langpih undertaken earlier by the Assam Government.
Nongsiej also made it clear that the construction of the market complex will proceed further and in the meantime all these unwanted developments taking place will immediately be reported to the Meghalaya Government accordingly.
Following the meeting, Nongsiej interacted with a large crowd which had gathered at Langpih market.
The crowd, numbering around 500, demanded that construction should continue until its final completion. They further assured that they themselves would undertake the construction work voluntarily and urged upon the State Government to deploy more police forces at Langpih so as to avoid any escalation of tension in the area.
Meanwhile, FKJGP Raidmynsaw Unit (Langpih area) president, Pynwan K Bani, also requested Home Minister HDR Lyngdoh to immediately deploy additional police force at Langpih for the safety and security of the border people.
It may be mentioned that the Assam Government officials who attended the meeting on Wednesday were escorted by heavily armed security personnel consisting of one full company of Black Cat Commandos, while the Meghalaya officials were accompanied by only one security vehicle.