KSU puts up posters as a tribute to five victims killed in Mukroh firing incident

The Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) on Wednesday put up posters in different locations of the city as a mark of paying tribute to the five victims killed in the November 22, 2023 Mukroh firing incident.

One of the posters also read “Mukroh is part and parcel of Meghalaya!! Assam halts your intrusions”. The KSU has also criticized the state government for ordering removal of the banners from the different locations.

Speaking to reporters, KSU general secretary Donald V Thabah said, “It is not actually a protest but a tribute to the five fallen souls of our community, who have lost their lives due to the unprecedented firing by the Assam police and forest guards.”

“The tribute is also to remind our people that our borders are still not yet properly demarcated. People residing along the interstate border are living in fear and are without security as no police personnel are protecting them,” he added.

He said even after the Mukroh incident, there are still skirmishes happening in the Meghalaya-Assam border adding the recent incident took place at Khanduli where people from two communities are engaged in stone pelting against each other.

“We have also seen certain groups in Assam have claimed that places like Khanduli, Mukroh, Lapangap, Psiar, Khatkhasla – all falls under Assam but we would also like to make a strong statement that those are areas are being resided by Khasi people and the fields also belongs to the Khasis so they should fall under the state of Meghalaya because if we give those lands to Assam then the very concept of a hill state is a failure,” he said.

On the other hand, the KSU leader slammed the state government for ordering the police to remove the tribute posters for the five victims and said, “This baffled us as to why is the government of Meghalaya doing this because it is merely a tribute campaign to remember the lost souls and to speak to the people that the fight is still going on.”

“It makes us wonder and it also makes us think that may be because there is an international festival going on here in the city and dignitaries all over the countries specially from NE states and particularly from Assam, maybe they don’t want to embarrass the Assam dignitaries oh the people of Meghalaya are against the intrusion of Assam inside the Meghalaya border. If they don’t want to embarrass means that the government fear, if they are afraid to simply allowing the Assam dignitaries to see the posters displayed by the KSU imagine what will they do and how will they do if they have to talk face to face in front of the Assam officials. Would they dare make the claims that all those areas under dispute with the majority Khasi population should fall under Meghalaya. That is a billion dollar question,” he said.

To a question, Thabah said even if the two state governments hand over the investigation into the Mukroh incident to the CBI, the people residing along the interstate border will still live in fear.

“Investigation will come and go. If the violence, harassment and killing stop in Mukroh it might happen in other places also because Assam continued to intrude into our areas, villages, fields and forest so it is high time for the government to come up strongly to speak out against the atrocities by the Assam forest guards and Assam police and also militants,” he added.