The Hindu : New Delhi News : “Police firing cases a major poll issue”

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“Police firing cases a major poll issue”

Special Correspondent

Sangma to highlight deaths in Garo Hills incidents

Accuses Meghalaya Govt. of shielding the guilty
Relatives of the victims had filed a PIL

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 elected, the party 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 government’s move to shift the headquarters of the Meghalaya Board of School Education 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 seeking institution of a CBI probe. 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 probes as they had only revealed the administrative lapses and failed to reflect on the criminal aspects of the “unprecedented police firing.”

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