The Federation of Khasi, Jaiñtia and Garo People (FKJGP) has demanded the immediate arrest of the three residents of the Bholaganj area who made accusations of persecution against Hindus in the state for attempting to create communal disharmony.
“Since the Hill State Movement (which led to the creation of Meghalaya) till date we have never seen anybody making statements to incite religious intolerance [like these],” the FKJGP said.
Since the February 28 Ichamati incident, where a meeting against the Citizenship Amendment Act organised by a conglomeration of pressure group came under attack, resulting in the death of a Khasi Students Union (KSU) member, the Hindu non-tribal population in Bholaganj-Ichamati has come under severe persecution, the trio who met the Governor – Prantush Sarkar, Mridul Das and Binayak Roy – claimed in a memorandum earlier this month.
Those allegations led to antagonism towards Meghalaya from organisations in West Bengal and Assam, with protests and police complaints made, as well as a vicious slugfest on social media.
The trio of Sarkar, Das and Roy had stated that pressure groups and government bodies were responsible for persecuting Hindus in Meghalaya, but the FKJGP rejected this, saying that its fight has always been to protect the rights of the indigenous populace.
The NGO also said that if the government was quick to arrest members of pressure groups in the past, then it has to have the guts to arrest these three without delay.
“If the government of Nagaland is prompt in arresting people who are against their tribes even the Meghalaya government can easily arrest such troublemakers so that in the future such people don’t surface again,” the federation said.
Some of the accusations and protests made against the state have been led by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) figures and the FKJGP also urged the government to take up this issue with the BJP leadership in New Delhi to ensure that there are no more “loudmouths” who make accusations “devoid of any basis”.
The pressure group also thanked the office of the Syiem of Hima Sohra who sent a team to investigate whether there was any truth in the allegations of atrocities against the people who profess Hinduism in the area.
