Petrol bomb hurled at DMR office, car damaged
Shillong, Sept 16: Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday assessed the situation at Directorate of Mineral Resources (DMR) at Risa Colony here following a petrol bomb attack on its premises, causing damage to a private vehicle.
Sangma, along with Chief Secretary and other senior officers, rushed to the spot soon after the incident that occurred around 3:30 pm.
DMR employees were still on duty at that time.
The Chief Minister, meanwhile, assured compensation for the damage to the private Alto car (ML-05 AC 0429) owned by a DMR officer.
“The CM said that since the vehicle belongs to a staff, the government will help with the expenses,” DMR Director MB Tongper said.
Sangma also stressed the need to install more CCTVs in all government offices to detect perpetrators of such incidents, according to the director.
Recounting the incident, Tongper said, “I was in this room, I had a meeting and I just heard the sound of glass breaking. I thought a vehicle had hit a pillar, but when we looked properly, we saw that there was a fire. The vehicle caught fire from the front.”
“Luckily our staff were outside and within just 4-5 minutes, we were able to douse the fire. We extinguished it immediately,” he added.
The fire service arrived after the blaze was already put out.
Police from Laitumkhrah Police Station have launched an investigation after two FIRs were filed — one by the Director, DMR and another by the vehicle owner.
“We don’t know who is involved. This is the first time such an incident has happened and we don’t know for what reason it happened,” Tongper said.
