Shillong, Nov 12: Protesters from the Joint Action Committee (JAC) against the Shillong Ropeway Project were on Friday removed from the front of the Secretariat where they “illegally” staged a demonstration even as they took permission for a protest march only.
As they refused to disperse despite repeated requests from the magistrate, the protesters were taken away in two buses.
The magistrate announced over a PA system that the rally was illegal as no permission was granted for stopping or dharna while they attempted to break into police barricade set up before the Secretariat.
The magistrate also told the gathering that they had exceeded their time of two hours taken for the rally and that the JAC president gave her written consent to the terms and conditions.
The JAC members staged a march from the U Kiang Nangbah statue to the Secretariat demanding for scrapping or shifting of the ropeway project.
On reaching the Secretariat, protesters attempted to break through the barricades placed opposite the gate to sit in front of it.
Police pushed them back and took away the mattress they had carried for a sit-in demonstration, triggering a tense face-off.
The confrontation came a day after the JAC rejected the proposal of South Shillong Advisory Committee, headed by local MLA and cabinet minister Sanbor Shullai, for an independent expert committee to probe the ropeway’s environmental impact.
The women were at the forefront of the march held placards demanding immediate resignation of seven local Rangbah Shnongs and revocation of the land lease agreement for the project signed with the Tourism department.
They said tourism can go elsewhere but the catchment cannot, that the people need water from Lum Shyllong, and that development without wisdom is destruction with a budget.
“We expect the Government to listen to the cries of the mothers who are weeping for Lum Shyllong, because Lum Shyllong is not only for him. It is for all of Shillong, for the Ministers, for the MLAs. Even our own MLA, from where does he drink water?” JAC president Deborah Marbaniang told reporters during the protest.
Urging the government listen to voice of the local people, she asserted that the agitation would continue till the ropeway project is either scrapped or shifted elsewhere.
Shillong different from Shimla
The JAC, meanwhile, rejected the government’s proposal to take its members to Sikkim and Shimla to see ropeways, saying Lum Shyllong cannot be compared with any other hill station.
Reacting to the offer made by Tourism Minister Paul Lyngdoh, the JAC president Deborah Marbaniang said, “We in the JAC are not foolish people who will just believe whatever he says, to go for a trip here and there.”
Stating that Shimla cannot be compared with Shillong, she said, “Lum Shyllong is the one that gives food, gives water to the whole city of Shillong. It gives electricity. If Lum Shyllong is destroyed, Shillong is finished.”
The government, however, consistently maintained that neither Lum Shyllong nor any water source is anywhere near the proposed alignment of the ropeway.
On whether the JAC will join the government for an inspection of the ropeway site, Marbaniang questioned the purpose of such an exercise.
“What is the use of going for an inspection, when even the water source behind the ropeway, that water used to flow in the monsoon and in winter, but since the trees were cut, now it has dried up,” she said.
“The water source — now fire brigade water tankers and water supply vehicles come to fetch water — has dried up. What is the use of going for an inspection anymore?” she asked.
