By Our Reporter
SHILLONG, Feb 27: UDP MLA from Nongpoh, Mayralborn Syiem on Tuesday brought a zero-hour notice on the growing insecurity and fear among border residents in Marmain area in Ri-Bhoi following a poster campaign launched by an Assam-based radical group targeting Christian missionary institutes.
Referring to a report in The Shillong Times under the headline “Border residents in fear over threat from radical group”, Syiem said, “After reading the report, I tried to contact the concerned border residents who are living in a state of fear, especially in these villages and schools run by Christian missionaries in border area.”
Reading out the excerpts from a poster written in Assamese language, Syiem said, “The point of bringing the zero-hour notice is that we have to appeal to the people living in the border areas to restrain from taking the law into their own hands and at the same time both the governments should take necessary precautions since ‘there is no smoke without fire’.”
In his reply, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said, “We see many reports that come out in the newspaper, social media and so on and so forth and even yesterday we had a report about something that came out on YouTube and later on it turned out to be incorrect, We need to first verify the report before we respond or act in any way.”
Stating that he is in constant touch with his Assam counterpart and the two chief secretaries and the OSDs at the political level are also in touch, Sangma said a very strong communication channel exists between the two governments for any such incident or situation that may occur.
“We will ensure that the SP of the particular district, the DG and the entire police force is informed that necessary manpower augmentation and patrolling should be done to ensure that the people have the sense of confidence,” he said, while adding that it would be incorrect on his part to respond further without verifying the claims.