The Congress Party has rubbished the claim of Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui that Meghalaya is short of police personnel and thus cannot prevent all acts of illegal mining.
There has been increasing criticism over the state government’s apparent lack of action or inability to curb illegal mining and, on Tuesday, Rymbui stated that there are vacancies for 1,800 police of the lower ranks.
Meghalaya Pradesh Congress Committee working president and former cabinet minister Deborah Marak, however, dismissed Rymbui’s claim in its entirety, describing him as either misled or ignorant of the ground reality.
Speaking to reporters, Marak said that she regularly sees numerous police personnel on the state’s highways. With the same force, the previous Congress-led government was able to defeat militancy, so she could not quite believe that the present government is unable to halt illegal coal operations.
“I’ve seen on the Dainadubi national highway stretch that there are police vehicles stationed every 100 to 200 metres. I wonder, what are they doing there and who are they protecting?” she said. “He (Rymbui) must have been misled or either isn’t aware of the ground reality. I am from a coal belt area and everytime I travel from Shillong to Williamnagar at night I see plenty of trucks.”
Instead, the former MLA said, the district administration in East and South Garo Hills have utterly failed to curb illegal operations.
