Shillong: Six persons, including a forest guard, were killed in an incident of firing at Mukroh village in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hills on Tuesday, official sources said.
Of the six dead, five were from Meghalaya and the forest guard was from Assam. The incident sparked tension in the villages on the Assam-Meghalaya borders.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Meghalaya administration suspended mobile internet services in seven districts of the state for 48 hours to check violence. The incident occurred when a team from Assam Forest Department tried to stop a smuggled timber-loaded truck. As the vehicle did not stop, the officials of the forest department chased the vehicle.
The forest guards, somehow, managed to halt it by puncturing one of the tyres of the vehicle near Mukroh village in Meghalaya. Locals then surrounded police and forest guards. As a result, the police fired at the crowd. Reacting to the incident, Chief Minister of Meghalaya Conrad Sangma said that the incident was unfortunate and the Assam police were responsible for firing first. The Meghalaya government has ordered a judicial inquiry into the incident and registered an FIR in connection with the incident.
To end border disputes between Meghalaya and Assam, the chief ministers of the both the state Conrad and Himanta Biswa Sarma signed a pact in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in March this year. The issue has been pending for 50 years.
Disputes between the two states began after Meghalaya was carved out of Assam as a separate state in 1972. There are disputes in 12 places between the two states that often spark clashes.
