The outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) has claimed responsibility for the March 9 improvised explosive device (IED) attack on Them Ïew Mawlong and served a one month ultimatum to the state government to relocate the settlers living there.
The outfit’s general secretary, Sainkupar Nongtraw, in an emailed press release, said that the HNLC’s “special forces” unit carried out the blast.
The attack came just weeks after the HNLC ended its peace talks with the state and central governments over the failure to meet certain of the rebels’ demands.
The explosion injured one person and caused minor damage.
The Sweepers’ Colony is protected by police after the 2018 riot but despite the heavy presence of the law, the person who planted the device was still able to do so without being stopped.
This is the third such IED attack in Shillong since 2021, with others occurring in the same period in other parts of the state, which has left the police red-faced.
Nongtraw said that the police must have been shocked that the rebels were able to detonate such a device in a high security zone. He also claimed that the HNLC consciously decided not to harm civilians in the attack.
However, he demanded that the police force be removed from the area and free ingress and egress be permitted to the general public. Nongtraw also demanded that the residents be relocated within a month, though the HNLC said that it has no problem with the colony’s residents per se, as they are descendants of those who settled in the area decades ago.
The police are controlled by non-tribals for non-tribal interests, the HNLC leader added. Even the two Deputy Chief Ministers, Prestone Tynsong and Sniawbhalang Dhar, both of whom are from the Khasi-Jaintia community, have been used by Garo leaders, he claimed – first by Dr Mukul Sangma and now by Conrad Sangma, the two most recent Chief Ministers of Meghalaya.
Nongtraw’s parting shot was to describe Tynsong and Dhar as not being “intellectually independent” enough to think for themselves.
