The Hindu : National : “Police firing incidents will be a major poll issue”

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 04, 2008
ePaper

National

National

“Police firing incidents will be a major poll issue”

Special Correspondent

Sangma to highlight deaths in Garo Hills incidents

Guwahati: Former Lok Sabha Speaker and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader P.A. Sangma on Thursday said his party would make the death of nine persons in the twin incidents of police firing at Williamnagar and Tura of Garo Hills on September 30, 2005, one of the major poll issues in the coming Assembly polls in Meghalaya.

Mr. Sangma also promised that if his party was elected, it would scrap the reports of the two judicial probes instituted by the Congress-led coalition government into the twin incidents and order a CBI probe into them.

He alleged that the Congress-led coalition government in Meghalaya had been shielding those guilty in the “unwarranted police firing on peaceful demonstrations.” Nine protesters, including seven students, were killed in the firing on two Garo Students’ Union (GSU) demonstrations in the headquarter towns of Tura and Williamnagar.

The GSU was protesting the Meghalaya government’s move to shift the headquarters of the Meghalaya Board of School Education (MBOSE) from Tura to Shillong.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Gauhati High Court issued notice to the Meghalaya government asking it to file an affidavit on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed before the court seeking institution of a CBI probe into the incidents of firing.

The petition was filed by the family members of three of the victims of police firing.

Their lawyers, Amit Tiwari and Gajanan Tiwari, told reporters that the petitioners submitted that they were not satisfied with the findings of the two judicial probes — each headed by retired judges D.N. Chouhdury and D.N. Baruah — as they had only revealed the administrative lapses and failed to reflect on the criminal aspects of the “unprecedented police firing.”

“Shocking footage”

Mr. Tiwari said an independent fact-finding team of the North East People’s Initiative had stated in its report that “there is strong evidence that the firings were deliberate and pre-meditated and that there was clear intent to use disproportionate force against the protesters.”

“The video footage is absolutely shocking and no further evidence should really be required to establish who are the guilty. For instance, the video clip clearly shows a CRPF jawan showering bullets on the gathering, with his hands raised above his head to aim his AK-47 at the crowd above the boundary wall, virtually dancing from one foot to another, that too not as an impulsive response to a volatile situation, but as a deliberate act lasting a few minutes and with seeming intent to inflict maximum fear and terror,” the report of the fact-finding team had stated.

Mr. Sangma said that as the people of Garo Hills were not satisfied with the findings of the judicial probes a delegation had met the Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil and demanded institution of a CBI probe. However, Mr. Patil told the delegation that the Centre cannot suo motu order one.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National