TURA: A polling party on the move to its destination in remote South Garo Hills district encountered an unwelcome reception from militants who opened fire in the air from a distance to halt their approach in the Mindikgre region on Monday afternoon.
A polling party with adequate security force personnel left district headquarters Baghmara, in South Garo Hills on Monday morning for a 25 km travel en route to remote Rompa Asim.
The polling party carrying the EVM machines reached Mindikgre, 15 kms away from the main road in Gasuapara during the early part of the afternoon.
“After the polling party had crossed Mindikgre and reached Rompa Asim, 4 kms away, there was intermittent firing from a distance by unidentified militants,” informed senior police officials, who after receiving information of the incident rushed with additional forces to the area.
The militants, who are believed to have been in control of the area were reportedly pushed into a tizzy after seeing a large posse of security personnel arriving on the scene with government officials carrying election material.
“They were probably having a camp in the area but after seeing the arrival of security forces opened blank fire to stall their forward movement so as to get time to collect their things and disappear into the jungles,” informed police officials.
Later additional security force of the place to prevent a repeat of the afternoon incident.
343 polling stations hypersensitive in state: Out of 2562 polling stations that has been setup in Meghalaya for the Lok Sabha elections, 343 have been classified as hypersensitive and 375 as sensitive, Our reporter adds.
Speaking to reporters in Shillong on Monday, Meghalaya Director General of Police PJP Hanaman said that 85 percent of the hypertensive polling stations were located in Garo Hills. The classification was based on the assessment of the Government on law and order problem, group clashes and political rivalry.
The State has got only 40 companies of Central para-military forces to tackle any law and order eventuality during the elections.
“Comfort level may not be there but we are confident that we can deal with any eventuality,” the DGP said.
According to Haneman, he had little doubt that polls would go on peacefully in the state. The Government had also tied up with Assam Government and BSF to ensure that elections were held without any glitches in polling stations which were located along the inter state and international borders.
BSF have been asked to seal the border on Wednesday, the day of poll, and requested o keep an eye on the large number of polling stations on the Indo-Bangladesh border.”
The State Government was confident that the voting turnout in the election will be higher as a similar bandh had been called by HNLC in last Assembly election but despite that the turnout was more than 88 percent.
Additional Chief Secretary BPO Warjri said that all arrangement for the polling had gone well and they have reviewed the preparations in seven out of 11 districts. “All arrangements are excellent and we are satisfied with it,” he said.
He stated that Government would arrange public transport on the day of polls to enable voters to reach their polling stations.