Shillong, Aug 24: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma has vowed to take strong action against those who tried to create fear in the society, saying “we will not spare them”.
Speaking to reporters, the Chief Minister on Monday termed the August-19 violence in Shillong as “very unfortunate”.
“Whatever happened was very unfortunate. There are people who try to create fear in the system and the society and we will not spare them,” Sangma said.
Promising strong action against the perpetrators, he said, “We are going to take strong action against those who have tried to create that fear. Our citizens should not be worried.”
He acknowledged that the public faced inconvenience in the aftermath of the incident due to reactions from neighbouring Assam.
“There was certain inconvenience caused, we do agree to that because of the reaction we saw from our neighbouring state. That has to be controlled, discussed and negotiated. Now that we have got all of that behind us, we should move in a positive manner,” he said.
Calling for collective responsibility, Sangma said the right to peaceful protest cannot be misused to take law into one’s own hands.
Reminding the various organisations and stakeholders of their responsibilities, he said, “While we have the right to peaceful protest, it does not mean you can take the law into your own hands. Especially beating up and harming innocent people – a strong message should go from all of us on this.”
Making an appeal to the society to take a stand, he said, “Society must also at one point come out regarding this.”
Stating that his government has always been open to dialogue, the Chief Minister warned that a line cannot be crossed.
“We have been one of the most open governments. We have been very open to discuss any issue and open to talks. But there is a line that we have to draw and one cannot cross the line. That is the message for everybody – please don’t try to do that, and if anybody does, we will have to take action as per law,” he said.
On concerns over tourist footfall, Sangma admitted that law and order situations do cause public inconvenience, but said swift de-escalation measures have been taken.
“Law and order situations do happen. We are not trying to justify it by saying it happens elsewhere. But when it happens, the public has to face inconvenience, which is what we saw in the last one week. We have taken very swift measures to ensure tension doesn’t escalate further. We don’t expect any escalation in future. We are trying to de-escalate and bring back confidence,” he said.
Appealing for cooperation from all sides, he added, “We urge all stakeholders from Assam and Meghalaya, different organisations and tourist stakeholders, to work together to ensure normalcy and de-escalation at the earliest. A lot of outreach and confidence-building programmes will have to be done, which all of us can do together.”
