Admin assures security during shutdown hours
SHILLONG: On the eve of proscribed HNLC’s 12-hour bandh, Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma has urged the people of Khasi and Jaiñtia Hills to come out openly against such dictate.
“People of Garo Hills have shown the way. It is time for the people of Khasi and Jaiñtia Hills to replicate the same exemplary courage and conviction with which the people of Garo Hills had defied bandh called by GNLA,” Dr Sangma said in his statement here on Sunday.
“I expect people to defy such bandh,” Chief Minister said.
HNLC has called for a dawn-to-dusk shutdown on December 23 in protest against the government actions of imprisonment of ‘national leaders’ and treating them as terrorists.
Meanwhile, the Deputy Speaker Sanbor Shullai has also asked people to defy the Monday’s bandh.
In statement issued to the media on Sunday, Shullai said the bandh called by HNLC was totally unjustified “since the day has a lot of significance.”
“Since people are preparing to celebrate Christmas in its right spirit, it is not understood as to what significance, the bandh will bring apart from depriving the poor who would otherwise benefit from this festive season,” Shullai said.
He also urged people to come out in large number defying the bandh, while asking shopkeepers to keep their shops open.
Earlier East Khasi hills district deputy commissioner Sanjay Goyal had also appealed to the business community to open their shops during the bandh hours on Monday to enable the public to do their Christmas shopping and also urged people to defy bandh and come out like in any other week days.
Goyal in a statement said adequate security personnel will be deployed in the capital and across the state to ensure that everything is in order and peace prevails on the eve of Christmas.
“It is our duty to uphold the law and order in the District and to ensure that each one of us is able to live in a peaceful manner which will usher in a meaningful way to celebrate Christmas,” Deputy Commissioner said.
“I would like to reiterate our appeal particularly to the shop keepers and commercial establishment to open their shutters during shutdown,” he said.