SHILLONG: The FKJGP Samanda circle has clarified on the death of a trader from Assam on Thursday after he was allegedly assaulted by the federation’s members.
In a statement, issued on Sunday, the Samanda circle general secretary, Raksrang A Sangma, said media reports that FKJGP was collecting money from traders on the pretext of checking trading licence “is baseless and immature”.
The statement said the federation had information about non-tribal traders from Assam in Rongsak and based on this, the president of the Samanda Circle and the additional general secretary and its member went to the Rongsak market.
In a hurry, the members could not inform police, the statement said.
According to East Garo Hills police, the Assam trader, identified as Johirul Islam (45) of Goalpara district, along with his brother-in-law Sofijur Rahman had come to the weekly Rongsak market to supply bakery items when the FKJGP members accosted them and on the pretext of demanding trading licence assaulted them.
FKJGP said in the statement the victim could not provide trade licence for non-tribals and the exchange of words continued for a couple of minutes and later the victim understood his mistake and “tried to bribe one of our members”. “Out of anger our member slapped the non-tribal trader where he collapsed at once, later the crowd gathered at the place of incident compelling our members to flee,” it said.The FKJGP is “waiting for the post mortem report”. It blamed the failure of the authority concerned to check non-tribal traders’ licences for the incident.
Also, it urged the GHADC chief and deputy commissioners in Garo Hills to direct all bazaar committees, Nokmas, village headmen to check non-tribal traders’ licences.
Three among the four assailants were arrested.
