Shillong, May 16: Chief Minister, Conrad K. Sangma on Tuesday said that he would convene a meeting to undertake an internal assessment of the situation over the reports about regrouping of the GNLA.
“It is an internal report for right now. I haven’t seen a copy of the report as yet. These are assessments made from time to time at different levels and this is part of an exercise which is normally done. But I have not seen the report myself as of now,” Sangma said while speaking to reporters.
Stating that the government will obviously be concerned at every level on this development, he however, said that he was not saying that he was concerned in the sense that he was worried or anything like that.
“But you must understand that as a government, we receive a lot of intelligence inputs. But when such intel comes in then we have to filter out to see which one has got any kind of actual weightage. So these procedures are very complicated,” Chief Minister said.
Pointing out that sometimes they receive around 100 to 200 such intel reports, Sangma said that it is difficult for him to say anything right now without seeing the report.
“But as the state government we don’t take anything likely,” he added.
It may be mentioned that an internal memo by a DSP-ranked police officer in West Garo Hills that was leaked and surfaced online has led to massive panic in the Garo Hills region. The internal memo, which was only meant for circulation between officers of the police force, had claimed that the dreaded Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) was regrouping and was on a recruitment drive in the entire region to once become a force to reckon with.
The memo is dated May 11 and was meant for circulation in all police stations of the district with officers being asked to check on the authenticity of the ‘source information’ provided by one of the former members of the outfit.
The memo stated that input was received that the GNLA, which has remained dormant for many years, were regrouping again and meetings were being conducted in many areas including Jadigittim and Nongalbibra (SGH), Shallang (WKH) to encourage youths to join the GNLA.
The memo added that as many as 500 youths from the various districts of Garo Hills had joined the outfit and had been sent to countries like Myanmar and Nagaland for basic training. It also claimed that various big businessmen, who were close associates of the GNLA earlier, were aiding the outfit to regroup.
Speaking about the leaked document, Meghalaya DGP, LR Bishnoi said that there cannot be 500 cadres being inducted in the outfit as the numbers were not that high even when insurgency was at its peak.
Admitting that someone leaked the document to the media, he said that it was a routine source of information and the matter has been sent for verification.
Further, the memo requested all police stations to verify the authenticity of the information provided by the source while asking the police and intelligence to closely monitor the movement of surrendered cadres, known business associates, over ground workers of the outfit as well as sympathisers to see if the inputs held any water.