The All Garo Hills JAC, a delegation of NGO leaders and social activists from the Garo Hills region yesterday, Aug 18 submitted a memorandum to the union minister of law and justice, Kiren Rijiju at his official residence in New Delhi over various issues that needed to be addressed.
The first part of the memorandum sought the speeding up of the investigation of the death of Rosy Sangma and her nephew Samuel Sangma, both of whom died under mysterious circumstances in the NCR.
Rosy and Samuel both belong to the Garo tribe both were residents of Nagaland.
While Rosy died under strange circumstances in a hospital in Gurugram in Haryana, Samuel was found hanging from his hotel room in Green Park area of the capital. His death was ruled a suicide by the Delhi police. However a huge hue and cry over their deaths led to the home ministry ordering a CBI inquiry into the matter.
“Till date justice has been elusive for the family of the victims. We express our anguish and desolation over their deaths in such mysterious circumstances,” said advisor to the AGHJAC, Roger Benny A Sangma.
The delegation pointed to the bruise marks on the body of Samuel as well as the feeding of ice cream to Rosy and felt that the deaths were unnatural.
“We urge the central investigating agencies to do a thorough probe into their deaths so that justice can be given to the family and truth is brought out,” said convenor, Balkarin Marak.
The delegation was accompanied by the former union minister of state for water resources, Vincent H Pala with a copy of the memo also being sent to the state’s chief minister, Conrad K Sangma and Congress leader, Mukul Sangma.
The AGHJAC also highlighted the racial discrimination faced by people from the North East in the capital.
“Women from our region face abuses in extremely horrific ways, in the form of serious sexual gestures, racial slurs, eve teasing; etc. in most of the cases, government authorities try to dodge the issues and are reluctant to redress the grievances unless superior officers intervene or the civil society makes an outcry,” added Walseng Sangma, one of the delegation members.
AGHJAC urged law enforcing agencies to take strict steps to safeguard the people of North-Eastern India by establishing a comprehensive and stringent law and also by following up any issues of tribals’ concern to its logical conclusion by strict monitoring from their end.
They also felt that the major reason for racial discrimination was the lack of awareness and lack of knowledge of cultures of the NE states. AGHJAC felt that incorporation of study material of culture and region of the NE would go a long way in educating the people of the NE and in turn stop such abuses and crimes from taking place.
