Garo Hills social activist Cherian Momin has accused the state government of double standards in its treatment of hunger strikers.
A hunger strike is currently underway in Tura to push the demand for a winter capital in Garo Hills and to apply the roster system retrospectively. Balkarin Ch Marak and Laben Ch Marak have been without food for a week and yesterday saw Balkarin’s health deteriorate, though it is alleged that the government has taken little notice.
Momin, in a letter to the Chief Minister, claimed that had the hunger strikers been Khasis, the government would have acted more immediately. In this he may have been referring to the example of Ardent Basaiawmoit, an MLA who embarked on a hunger strike of his own on the subject of the roster system and whose protest received much greater attention from the authorities.
