After Assam-Meghalaya border violence, dark shadows in a village down the road | India News,The Indian Express

Last week, Mukroh, on Meghayala’s border, was thrust into the spotlight when a clash with Assam authorities led to the deaths of five villagers. ‘Others take this road too, but we suffer,’ they say

It’s here, on this road that cuts through Mukroh, a village in Meghayala’s West Jaintia Hills district, that a team of the Assam Police and forest personnel clashed with villagers early morning on November 22, leaving five of them dead. Also among the dead was a Assam forest guard. The incident thrust Mukroh, which sits on the border with Assam, into the uneasy glare of the spotlight and made it the centre of the latest flashpoint between the two states.

Perched atop the lush green hills of Laskein block, Mukroh has about 545 households with a population of around 4,000. Most of the residents are farmers who work on community fields located outside the village. The paddy farms overlook the inter-state boundary, where Assam has a small forest camp. Meghalaya, however, has no camp or check post on its side and a small team of the Meghalaya Police maintain vigil on this fragile boundary.

While the Assam authorities say Tuesday’s incident was over an alleged timber smuggling bid and that they chased down a vehicle with the contraband, villagers allege that they were on their way back from their community paddy fields, around 1 am, their vehicle loaded with 3-4 sacks of rice and some fodder, when they were allegedly waylaid by the police.

“Around 3 am, as we were nearing our village, the Assam Police stopped us and pulled me and the others out of the vehicle. The policemen tortured us and thrashed us at a police outpost, calling us smugglers,” says Budky Sumer, 23, one of the farmers from Mukroh, whose arrest, as alleged by the villagers, led to the standoff and the police firing.

Villagers claim all those who died in the clash — Thal Shadap, 60, Sik Talang, 53, Shirup Sumer, 39, Tal Nartyang, 42 and NIkasi Dhar, 60 — were not protesters, but “simple farmers” on their way to their fields.

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/a-letter-from-meghayalas-mukroh-dark-shadows-in-a-village-down-the-road-8291743/


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