Shillong, July 11: In the aftermath of the communal clash in Tura and the prevailing tension in the border areas of the district, the Meghalaya Chief Minister Dr. Mukul Sangma met the officials of the District Administration, religious leaders and NGOs at Tura Circuit House to assess the situation and to seek their views and suggestions to contain the problem.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by Parliamentary Secretary (Home) Mr. W.D. Saiibma,North T’ura MLA and Parliamentary Secretary Mr. N. R. Marak, Principal Secretary (Home) Mr. K.S. Kropha, DGP Mr. P J P Hanneinan and ADCP, Mr. Y C Modi among others during the meeting.
Dr. Sangma, who had earlier in the day visited South West Garo Hills district to take stock of thesituation following the incidents at Monabari near the Assam-Meghalaya border, congratulated the people of Garo Hills, particularly the district administration, the church leaders and NGOs for their endeavour to sustain peace.
Saying that certain vested interests were working overtime to derail peace and normalcy in theRegion, Dr. Sangma assured that the role and responsibility of the government was to ensure peace at any cost, adding that there was fortunately, no backlasl~ because the government had engaged its Assam counterpart in maintaining law and order and trailquility on both tlle sides of the border.
“Perpetrators of the crime must be booked but we should also be control not to give it aCommunal colour”, he said.Views and suggestions were put forth to the Chief Minister from the GSU, Mothers’ Union,UCPF, Central Puja committee and other NGOs, which include regulation of migrant labour, creation of anti-dacoity camps in sensitive areas, police outposts, checking of influx, control of sale of liquor and drug trafficking and negotiation with GNLA for “permanent peace”, among others.
“When the focus of the government is derailed by acts of certain vested interests, lots of time is wasted and the focus cannot be given to others issues”, Dr. Sangma said. He, however added that he was looking forward to a new approach to governance to create enabling atmosphere for development. On the demand for anti-dacoity camps, the Chief Minister informed the meeting that the government has come up with the idea of “community police”, where in trained people would be deployed along with the police as the State had not been able to raise enough police force. “Raising a battalion takes time, but this if community police will take care of the shortage police”, he said.
He also informed that the first phase of the proposal for up-gradation of existing outposts and creation of more police stations is almost in the sanctioning stage.
On the issue of regulating labour, the Chief Minister assured that a mechanism would be put inPlace to tackle the issues of labour migrants through effective legislations and stressed the need for
sensitizing the people about labour rules and ‘procedures. He said that strong Tenancy Act would beput in place and also informed that the government was in the process of implementing NPR to help thegovernment to determine whether a person id a citizen of India or not.
Dr. Mukul also called upon the NGOs of Garo Hills to ignore the threats of AAMSU. “We need notworry when vegetables don’t reach Garo Hills. We, however, need to revisit our past and revive theculture of om forefathers who subsisted on home grown vegetables and not having to buy them”, he said.
In this regard, he said that the District administration with the Horticulture departments would identify those households having enough spaces in their homesteads and provide them the required support to create their own kitchen gardens.
The Chief Minister also expressed his dismay saying that sense of dignity of labour seems to beevading our people and stressed the need to sensitize the youth dignity of labour, created enablingenvironment for the youth and hold trainings on skill development for masonry, etc.(SP News)
