Assam and Meghalaya governments have decided to wind up their respective judicial inquiries into the Mukroh firing incident and to hand over probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“As a confidence building measures we have decided to wind up the judicial commission ordered by Assam and Meghalaya to inquire the Mukroh firing. Instead, both the government will now request the CBI to investigate the matter,” Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters after holding talks with Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma to resolve the interstate boundary dispute.
He said the governments will request the CBI not to register the case either in Shillong or in Guwahati, but in a neutral location such as Delhi, Kolkata or any other place.
Sarma said the decision to wind up the judicial commissions was because none were able to make any progress, because the witnesses of either state have not gone to the other side to depose before the commission of that state.
Mukroh was the site of a massacre in November last year when Assam police crossed the border and shot dead five villagers and one of their own forest guards after a confrontation with locals.
The dead include Thal Shadap (45), Sik Talang (55), Chirup Sumer (40), Tal Nartiang (40), and Nikhasi Dhar (65). All of them are residents of Mukroh. The Assam forest guard who was also killed in the incident was identified as Bidyasing Lekhte. The injured were Cheini Nartiang (48) and Elias Samaiang (36).
While Assam’s one-man commission headed by Justice (Retd) Rumi Kumari Phukan submitted its report on September 22, 2023, Meghalaya too constituted its one-man inquiry commission headed by Justice (retd) T Vaiphei.
