Shillong, Aug 20: The state government has decided to proactively pursue with the Centre for the establishment of a Territorial Army for enhancing the border security in the state.
Announcing this on Wednesday, cabinet minister and MDA government spokesperson Paul Lyngdoh said, “We will proactively and positively pursue the matter and since this also concerns the union government, all details relating to the territorial army will be shared with members of the cabinet.”
“We are meeting on August 26 and we should be in a position to take this process forward at this particular cabinet meeting,” he added.
Lyngdoh informed that the issue about the need for Meghalaya to have its own Territorial Army was raised by leaders of the North East Students Organization (NESO) as well as the Khasi Students Union (KSU).
“In fact I had given this idea way back when I was the president of the KSU and today we have received a note on how do we go about and structure and initiate the process of having the territorial army,” he said.
Lyngdoh cited examples of states like Mizoram and Assam, which have already established their own Territorial Army.
The NESO and KSU recently staged a sit-in-strike demanding the state government to seal the Indo-Bangla border and implement strict measures for the immediate detection and deportation of illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
