SHILLONG, Jan 6: The vexed border issue has returned to haunt Meghalaya government in the poll-bound state.
The epicentre was Bhalukmari village under the Boko revenue circle where scuffle broke out over Assam-Meghalaya border demarcation, officials said on Friday.
A senior police official informed that a few people from Meghalaya organised a meeting on Thursday on the premises of a private school in Bhalukmari village, where a skirmish broke out between people of Assam and Meghalaya.
The village headman, Sanjit Rabha, said, “A gathering had been planned by a few Meghalayan leaders at a private school in our village. When we learned about the meeting, a few of us, including the village president, asked them to end it and issued a warning not to hold any Meghalaya-related meetings in Assam’s territory.”
Locals allege that the people of Meghalaya have tried to establish that the school falls within the boundary of Meghalaya.
The village headman further said, “Knowing their motive, we went there and tried to stop them from holding any meeting here on our land, and they launched an attack on us.”
Following the incident, a team of Assam Police and district administration rushed to the village and tried to pacify both groups.
“The situation is under control now. We discussed with both groups, and the area is peaceful,” said Boko Revenue Circle Officer Dibash Bordoloi.
The incident has set political overtone with Opposition TMC jumping in the fray. Reacting on the incident, the party said violent clashes are an unending saga in the border villages as the state government has tried to impose the border MoU on the people.
“The people are not happy with the MoU and violent clashes will continue because people are being pushed to a situation against their will,” TMC vice president George B Lyngdoh said.
He also said his party has warned the state government against signing an MoU with its Assam counterpart considering that until and unless such an issue is resolved on the ground, the state government should refrain from such a move.
Lyngdoh added people would never accept anything imposed on them and instances showed people coming out to protest against any move to sign an MoU.
Attacking the state government for going ahead with the MoU plan despite opposition from several quarters, he said, “Now, they have come with an agreement only to please the BJP, the political master of the NPP.”
According to him, the government did not bother to reach out to the people. State government neither cared to amend the MoU nor did it do a detailed groundwork to avoid skirmishes which promoted ill feeling amongst the border residents.
“We request the people to be calm and refrain from violent means. At the same time, we also have to reach out to them. If the government has failed to do so, it is up to us as political parties to ensure that affected peoples’ sentiments are heard,” he added.
(With IANS inputs)
