SHILLONG, Aug 13: The shooting of former Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) leader Cheristerfield Thangkhiew on Friday is a throwback to the days of frequent encounters between the militant group and the Meghalaya police.
Prior to Thangkhiew’s killing, there were no major encounters between the police and HNLC for about 14 years as the firepower of the banned group was believed to have been depleted.
The last major encounter was in 2007 when the police gunned down five members of the HNLC in Shillong’s Cleve Colony. That shootout happened after a police team tried to intercept a Maruti van that was speeding by. All five militants in the van were killed while two policemen were injured in the exchange of fire.
The then East Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police, AR Mawthoh had said the five slain militants were the ones who had gone to the residence of HS Shylla, the then Chief Executive Member of the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council.
Mawthoh said the HNLC members had entered Meghalaya fromBangladesh to carry out their commander-in-chief, Bobby Marwein’s order to eliminate Shylla as well as the outfit’s former chairman Julius Dorphang.
Shylla had been vocal about uranium mining, saying that the state should go ahead with it. This had ostensibly angered the HNLC.
In 2010, four members of the HNLC and the United Liberation Front of Asom-Independent (ULFA-I) were arrested with weapons and explosives from Pynursla while heading toward their hideouts in Bangladesh after failing to carry out a bomb blast in Shillong.
Marwein had sent the four for another hit job on Shylla.
The HNLC weakened after this setback and many leaders were arrested from different parts of the state while others came forward to join the mainstream.
But the banned group continued to remain active on social media, issuing statements from time to time. The outfit tried to make its presence felt in 2015 with an IED blast at Jhalupara. No one was injured in the explosion triggered as a warning to the Nepalese and other non-tribals not to interfere in the affairs of the Hynniewtrep.
In 2019, the HNLC killed one Romeo Lyngdoh at Lapalang village in East Khasi Hills district after accusing him of being a police informer.
Last month, it carried out a blast at a Star Cement facility in East Jaintia Hills followed by another at the police reserve in the district. The outfit also detonated the Laitumkhrah IED blast on Tuesday that injured two people.
