HYC no-trust in police, seeks weapons for border residents

SHILLONG:

The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) on Sunday demanded that the state government provide arms and ammunition to people residing along the interstate border with Assam if it is unable to deploy adequate police personnel in every border police outpost.

“We demand the state government to deploy hundreds of police personnel in every police outpost and border police outpost along with arms and ammunitions and to direct them to use tear gas, lathi-charge and even open fire if needed to protect our land and the people in the border,” HYC general secretary Roykupar Synrem said in a statement.

“If the state government does not dare to deploy adequate security personnel, we demand that it would be better for the government to provide arms and ammunition and other weapons to the people in the border so that they can defend and protect their lives and property because as it is, police cannot be trusted anymore with this task,” he added.

The statement came after the state police had to flee after being attacked by Karbi people with catapults.

“We also want to ask the home minister of the state whether the cement factories are more important for the government than the people residing along the interstate border. Why did the government deploy only 10-15 police personnel at Khanduli sector but over 50-60 police personnel to protect the cement company responsible for environmental degradation? Why did the government order the police to protect the cement companies by using tear gas and resort to lathi charge against protesters including women but fail to issue a similar order to the police personnel deployed at Lapangap?,” Synrem asked.

He said that the government is answerable for all these incidents. “Did the police flee because of lack of manpower or because no order has come from the top to take action against the Karbi people who attempted to murder the police and the people at the border,” Synrem questioned.