Spotlight on recurring blasts in state

SHILLONG, March 10: The Harijan Colony IED blast has once again underlined the frequent use of explosives to spark terror in Shillong and elsewhere in Meghalaya over the last few years.
No organisation has claimed responsibility for Saturday’s blast but the police said it was carried out in a manner the banned HNLC had employed in the state in the past.
Taking into account the low-intensity blast at Jhalupara on the night of November 12, 2023, the police are trying to ascertain if more than one group is involved in such acts.
In 2022, a similar improvised explosive device or IED blast occurred at Police Bazar (Khyndailad) on a Sunday evening. The HNLC had claimed responsibility for the incident in which no one was injured.
The HNLC had also claimed responsibility for an IED blast at the Laitumkhrah main market on August 10, 2021. Two people were injured in the incident.
In the same year, the police’s bomb squad defused a crude IED found in a bag left unattended in front of the office of the National People’s Party in Lachumiere.
On July 14, 2021, the HNLC claimed responsibility for an IED blast at the police reserve in East Jaintia Hills’ Khliehriat. Two persons were injured in another IED blast at a cement plant in the same district on December 14, 2020.
The HNLC had claimed responsibility for both incidents. The outfit called the Khliehriat blast an “act of revenge” on the police for allegedly torturing and killing its members in custody.
The HNLC also carried out a blast in Jhalupara in 2015. It claimed to have planted RDX in the area to warn Nepalese and other non-tribals of Shillong against interfering in the affairs of the Hynniewtrep.