Two Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Mahila Morcha (women’s wing) members were among 19 persons arrested by the West Garo Hills district police for attacking the Meghalaya Chief Minister’s Secretariat in Tura, which local organisations want to be declared as the State’s winter capital.
A mob laid siege to the CM’s Secretariat and pelted stones late Monday evening when Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma was three hours into a meeting with leaders of the organisations to discuss the issues of the winter capital and the proper implementation of a 51-year-old job reservation roster system with retrospective effect.
The attack left 10 Meghalaya police personnel, seven Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and a woman Home Guard volunteer injured.
The miscreants also damaged 21 vehicles, including five from the CM’s convoy, the police said.
The State’s Director-General of Police, L.R. Bishnoi said the incident was a planned conspiracy to attack the Chief Minister. “We gathered evidence that money and liquor were distributed on July 23 to create violence,” he said.
The police recovered other pieces of evidence such as a jerry can, lighters, matchboxes, and stones outside the CM’s Secretariat, he added.
Mr. Bishnoi said one Saleng R. Marak, a former policeman with “some political affiliations” dismissed from service, has been identified as the main conspirator. A total of 26 people were also identified from video footage for indulging in the violence, 19 of whom have been arrested, he said.
Cases have been registered under the Meghalaya Maintenance of Public Order Act and Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act against the accused, he said.
The police confirmed the two arrested women — Dilche Ch. Marak and Belinda M. Marak — as BJP Mahila Morcha workers, and Richard M. Marak, one of the arrested men, as the president of the Trinamool Congress (TMC) youth wing.
State BJP president Ernest Mawrie said the party did not issue any directive to its Mahila Morcha to participate in the protest.
Former Chief Minister and senior TMC leader, Mukul M. Sangma said the local authorities were working as mouthpieces of the ruling National People’s Party to give his party a bad name.
‘Split capital’
A section of people in the Garo Hills, roughly comprising the western half of Meghalaya, has been demanding winter capital status for Tura, the State’s second-largest urban centre. The demand has stemmed from the perception that the eastern half of Meghalaya was more developed because of Shillong being the State’s capital.
Shillong is almost at the centre of the hills inhabited by the Khasis, one of three matrilineal communities of the State. The other two are Garos concentrated in the Garo Hills and the Jaintias dominating the Jaintia Hills.
Now, the demand to make Shillong the summer capital and Tura the winter capital has triggered a call in the Jaintia Hills for Jowai to be made the spring capital. Jowai is the nerve centre of the Jaintia Hills.
The spring capital demand is being spearheaded by the Jaintia Students’ Movement after the local unit of the Hynniewtrep Youth Council raised it a few days ago.
Ampareen M. Lyngdoh, Meghalaya’s Information Minister and government spokesperson, said such demands were illogical.
