SHILLONG: Meghalaya, which has bore the brunt of militancy for decades, managed to achieve peace this year. Though peace returned to Meghalaya but the state had to pay a heavy price as it lost one of its prominent politicians in Garo Hills.
Jonathone Sangma, who was the candidate of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from Williamnagar in the 2018 Assembly elections, was killed in an IED blast in the constituency while he was campaigning.
The 43-year-old NCP candidate was returning after campaigning and was on his way to Williamnagar when the convoy came under attack. Two others accompanying the NCP leader also died. The GNLA was suspected to have carried out the bomb attack. Soon after the death of Sangma, the most wanted militant in Meghalaya, GNLA chief Sohan D Shira, was shot dead in an encounter at Achakpek near Dobu in East Garo Hills district.
Shira, who was in his 40s, carried a bounty of Rs 10 lakh on his head. An assault rifle and live ammunition was seized from the encounter site.
After the death of Shira, many cadres of the banned outfit surrendered and police also recovered huge cache of arms and ammunitions from different parts of Garo Hills, which ultimately led to the neutralisation of the GNLA.
In March this year, the chairman of the outlawed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), Champion Sangma, also walked out of jail after a division bench of the Supreme Court while passing the order on a writ petition filed by Sangma against the state, set aside the order
passed by the additional district magistrate (judicial) allowing an application made by the prosecution against Sangma’s release. Sangma was arrested along the India-Bangladesh border in East Khasi Hills district on July 30, 2012.
In Khasi Hills too, the biggest shot in the arm came for the government when the most wanted insurgent leader and general secretary of the banned Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), Cherishstarfield Thangkhiew alias Bah Che, decided to give up arms and vowed to join the mainstream.
Wanted in more than two dozen cases of killings and kidnappings, Thangkhiew surrendered before the Deputy Chief Minister of Meghalaya, Prestone Tynsong, earlier this year.
He was a founder member of HNLC and has been waging a bush war against the state in close coordination with other fraternal insurgent outfits of the North East.
In the capital city of Shillong, militancy was a non-issue this year but the menace of drugs turned out to be the biggest headache for the city police.
During the entire year, police arrested many small-time drug peddlers throughout the city and seized substantial amount of heroin.
The police made a massive breakthrough and arrested three prominent supplier of heroin from the city and seized heroin worth Rs 8.9 lakh.
Another massive breakthrough came recently when Shillong Police, on the night of December 20, seized a banned drug called World is Yours worth Rs 2.9 crore and arrested three peddlers.
