‘Slur’ on KSU on Twitter irks its ex-president Paul

SHILLONG, July 27: Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh has strongly condemned the remarks made against KSU in a tweet by ‘Legal Rights Observatory-LRO’, which held the student body responsible for the assault at Mahadev Khola temple on July 24 afternoon.
Talking to reporters here on Thursday, Lyngdoh, who is also the former president of the student body, said that the accusations made by the Twitter handle LRO are baseless, even as he termed the action misuse of social media in order to portray a bad reflection of churches and indigenous people of the state.
“Probably the intent is to communalise the issue and malign the people of Meghalaya (in the eyes of) people from outside the state,” the Tourism minister said.
He, however, said that the police have been made aware of the matter and they are on the job to trace and identify the people behind the allegedly inflammatory tweet.
It may be mentioned that the KSU’s legal affairs secretary, James H Mawphniang, who had registered an FIR against the LRO Twitter handle was asked to report to Lumdiengjri police station on Thursday.
However, since the Investigating Officer (IO) of the case was unavailable, Mawphniang was told not to arrive at the police station.
The KSU, in its complaint, had sought action against the administrator(s) of the Twitter account for labelling the student body as goons and blaming its members for the attack at Mahadev Khola temple. “Khasi Students Union- KSU goons attacked Mahadev Khola mandir, 101 Area Lower Iowsohtun, Shillong, Meghalaya. We can see them assaulting priests, women devotees including family of priests. Hope @SangmaConrad @MeghalayaPolice act. Will Presb Church stop hate mongering? (sic)” the tweet read.
Rubbishing the claims, Mawphniang said that the incident had no connection with the KSU nor in any manner were its members involved in the case.
“The objective of this twitter account and the person(s) handling the account is only to disrupt the religious harmony and to instigate communal violence between communities,” Mawphniang said.
Any twitter account that spreads hate mongering and feeds false information to the public should be suspended/deleted, he asserted.
Meanwhile, talking about another case of attack involving the Chief Minister, Paul admitted that the intensity and the scale of Tura violence could have been contained. “A lot of things will be unearthed once the probe comes up with its final report,” Lyngdoh said.