The shooting by Assam police in Mukroh, West Jaiñtia Hills, almost claimed the life of a JHADC MDC, Aiborlang Shadap, the representative for Barato Mukroh.
Shadap received a phone call at around 5am from the Mukroh headman regarding the intrusion of armed Assam police into Meghalaya.
On reaching the spot, Shadap tried to get the Assam officials, made up of police and forest officers, to calm down. They had reportedly entered Meghalaya to detain a truck carrying timber but ended up also holding farmers from the area who were just going about their business. Despite Shadap’s efforts, however, the standoff with the crowd of locals who had come out in support of those detained by the Assam police grew.
“The dialogue went on for two hours. It then got heated up as the crowd were not willing to listen and that is when the firing took place,” Shadap said.
The MDC fled into the forest where he hid until the shooting stopped. Despite making phone calls to the Meghalaya authorities, he claims that it took nearly three hours for them to show up. Barato has no on site police force, though the Meghalaya government was preparing to inaugurate an outpost on November 25.
Mukroh is a village of around 600 households, with the residents largely involved in agriculture.
There were other victims of the incident, besides the six who sadly lost their lives.
Budki Sumer, a 23-year-old farmer, was returning from a farm around 1am on Tuesday with four others.
This being the harvest season, their vehicle was packed with paddy.
“On the road, we were cornered by the Assam police since we were behind the truck that was ferrying timber. They broke our windshield and then dragged us out of the car,” Sumer said, adding that two of their number fled the scene but the other three were hauled to Mokoilum police outpost.
He and the two others – Daman Bhoi and Peitlang Sumer – were handcuffed, stripped and then beaten mercilessly by their captors. They were eventually released into the custody of the Meghalaya police after the Deputy Commissioner of West Jaintia Hills and Superintendent of Police went there in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, residents of the village have also alleged they have been subjected to rampant extortion by Assam forest and police officials to the tune of Rs 1 lakh per truck.
While the Assam authorities might claim that the truck that was at the centre of the whole incident was ferrying illegal timber. However, sources claim that the truck driver had, in fact, declined to pay a bribe to the Assam forest officials and proceeded towards Mukroh. However, the forest officials had given chase and shot out one of the truck’s tyres, leading the driver to flee.
The Assam personnel then took out their frustrations on the occupants of the vehicle carrying the paddy, one of whom was Sumer.
The residents of the village, who are mainly subsistence farmers, are now concerned about their harvest and fear that they might incur a huge loss.
