Correspondent
Shillong: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma has termed yesterday’s incident at Lapalang as “very unfortunate”, attributing it to the long-standing border differences between Meghalaya and Assam.
“It’s a very unfortunate incident that has happened. This happened yesterday, and the root cause of this problem is the areas of differences in terms of the border area between the states of Assam and Meghalaya,” Sangma said.
He explained that the clash occurred in Lapalang, one of the areas still under dispute, where both states claim ownership of the land. “Both Assam and Meghalaya are claiming that the land belongs to them. We are in talks with Assam, and as Meghalaya, we maintain our stand that it belongs to Meghalaya, while Assam maintains its stand that it belongs to Assam. But we have discussed it, and we’re trying to resolve this issue,” he said.
The Chief Minister stated that tensions in the area have been recurring for decades, especially during the harvest season. “For many decades, the farmers from both sides have done their plantation, and during the harvesting season, there’s always a problem where one side or the other stops farmers from the opposite side from harvesting. We’ve seen this last year, the year before, and many years before that,” Sangma said, adding that peace committees and local stakeholders have been engaged to manage the situation.
He confirmed that police forces from both states were present and instructed to prevent escalation. “There were enough police forces from both sides, and both were instructed to restrain their own people and not engage with the other side,” he said.
However, despite those efforts, tensions flared. “While that restraining was going on, the crowd size increased, there were large numbers, and there was a scuffle between two groups of people from both sides. During that scuffle, one person lost his life,” Sangma said. “It was purely public to public. There was no enforcement agency involved from either side, no lethal action or anything of that sort. It was a scuffle between the public, and one person lost his life.”
Appealing for restraint and cooperation, the Chief Minister reminded that his government has already resolved six out of the twelve areas of difference with Assam. “For the last 52 years, no government took this initiative. It is only during our time that we resolved six locations, and six more are left. We are working towards that,” he said.
Sangma urged citizens on both sides to allow the governments to continue their dialogue. “We appeal to our citizens from both sides that while the governments are trying to find a peaceful long-term solution, people should cooperate and not resort to violence. We should look at dialogue to resolve the problems,” he said.
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