SHILLONG: The death of Sohan D Shira, one of Meghalaya’s most dreaded terrorists who had evaded the police for a long time even when he was almost within their grasp, has made the people of Garo Hills heave a sigh of relief.
However, they are also raising several incisive questions.
Jonathone Sangma was being intimidated since 2013 and had filed an FIR then. The case is still lying in the lower court unsolved. Wasn’t this an important enough case? Is the judiciary not to blame for dragging its feet on the case since Jonathone had to pay with his life thereafter? Under whose influence is the case being given a short shrift?
Sohan Shira like every C-In-C of a militant outfit and a man who has his nose to the ground chooses his bodyguards well and never travels alone. So how was he alone gunned down? No other casualties have been reported.
The other question is why now? Where were his bodyguards? Was Sohan lured to a safe spot in the same way that Jonathone and his team were lured by the GNLA by using the villagers as a decoy?
Is it the fear of an NIA enquiry that made Sohan Shira’s handlers decide that he needed to be bumped off now lest his links with them come to be established?
Sohan’s death is a grim reminder of the unproven fake encounter in which Fullmoon Dhar, who was also used by powerful handlers with a criminal mind, was shot dead before he could come clean.
And Fullmoon was almost at the point of confessing and dragging some powerful politicians down with him.
The timing of Sohan’s death also raises doubts. How could he be trapped this time when he had escaped so many times in the past? Or was he tipped off in the nick of time earlier when his services were still needed?
Social media is rife with allegations levelled against a certain politician who is believed to have had an indirect hand in the death of Jonathone Sangma. Did those pointed allegations trigger this operation?
Sources inform that generally Sohan’s bodyguards would be placed about 1 km away from him. At night he would sleep in the middle and they would be guarding him on both sides. This time the Special Force had specific information about Sohan’s whereabouts. Sources say the SF allowed the bodyguards to escape and only targeted Sohan. So did the bodyguards abandon Sohan as a quid pro quo for their safe return?
One common refrain from some in the police force is that with Sohan’s death many dirty secrets about the politician-militant nexus will also be buried with him.
