Four years have lapsed but no arrest has been made in the murderous attack of social activist Agnes Kharshiing and her aide Amita Sangma, despite identification of their key assaulters.
Kharshiing had suffered near-fatal wounds in a brutal assault allegedly by a group of people suspected to belong to the coal mining mafia in East Jaiñtia Hills on November 8, 2018.
She and Sangma have time and again identified the main leader of the murderous crowd as Nidamon Chullet, at that time a leader of the ruling National People’s Party (NPP), but to no avail as state police have been dragging their feet over this.
Though Chullet was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in murder case committed 14 years back by the District and Sessions Court, Jowai, it is an entirely different matter as he was convicted in another murder case, which was suddenly fast tracked after lying in the back-files for over a decade.
Kharshiing and Sangma have called for handing over their case to the CBI to get to the bottom of the matter to ensure that each and every person involved in the attack is identified and arrested. Their statement is that that there were about 30-40 people in the crowd which attacked them that day at Tuber Shohshrieh village.
Kharshiing, president of the Civil SWO has been voicing her stand against the continuous illegal mining of coal and illegal transportation of coal in the state despite a ban by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) even as coal legalized by the process under the NGT aegis is allowed to be transported.
Many voices have joined in to fight and a pile of public interest litigations and other cases pertaining to coal mining and transport are being attended to by the Meghalaya High Court. But there seems to be no closure as the State government stands accused for its failure to curb both illegal transportation as well as rat-hole mining of coal.
Four years on they have recovered against all odds. Kharshiing and Sangma attribute to the Grace of God, who has given them more time to continue on their struggle.
“We thank God for giving us life once again and protecting us as we move on 4 years and thank all those well wishers who have prayed for us and were with our families during that most difficult period,” they said.
Not backing down, they said, “We live in this beautiful world which God has given to all and vow that we shall still be with those who need us.”
