Shillong, July 29: The state president of Meghalaya Trinamool Congress, Charles Pyngrope on Saturday agreed with legislature party leader Mukul Sangma on the need of having an independent probe into Tura violence on July 24.
“An independent probe will definitely go down well with the people of Meghalaya as we also want to know the truth as to who has committed it,” Pyngrope, who is also a Nongthymmai legislator, said.
No politicisation of issue
Speaking to reporters, he also added that there should not be any politicisation of the issue.
“But my humble request is let us not politicise the matter and not say it was the TMC or the BJP or the Congress. They have picked up some people and they have interrogated them so let the truth prevail and then law will take its own course.”
Incident condemned
He, however, condemned the incident and said, “As president of the party and as legislator, I totally condemn the incident that happened in Tura irrespective of who were the perpetrators of the incident because civilization like ours, we can’t afford to behave like barbarians and specially to try and bodily harm the chief minister I mean it is a disgrace to our community and to the state as a whole and such things should never have occurred in the first place. That is my view.”
He refused to comment on the statement of Mukul that the police have reduced themselves as instrument of political bosses in the government.
Arrest of Richard Marak illogical
He termed the arrest of TMC youth leader Richard Mrong Marak as illogical.
Pyngrope said, “In the case of Richard Marak, I was made to understand that at that point of time he was not even in the place of occurrence so I find it quite surprising that the police picked him up. Let them pick him up for questioning but detaining was somehow not logical.”
“As far as my knowledge goes Richard’s wife has been discharged from the hospital on the same day and I was made to understand that he was with his wife at that time in his own residence,” he said.
Let the court of inquiry or the commission of inquiry come out with the facts and figures, he added.
Intelligence failure?
Pyngrope said the police after getting inputs of what is going to happen, should have acted swiftly irrespective of whether any incident will happen or not because the chief minister is a protected person.
He wondered as to how the crowd managed to get that close to the CMO.
“Well if they had the information like the DGP said we knew that something is up, then they should have put proper SOPs in place that’s how to deter such an incident, when you are aware that the incident is going to happen,” he said.
Police need reformation
On the overall law and order situation in the state, the AITC state president said the police have to bring reformation by putting officers who can handle law and order situation to avoid such incidents in the future.
“The incidents you are talking about, police have to be more active. I would say we can’t blame them for everything as half of the time they are also overburdened and I was made to understand they were understaffed. So the reformation of the department with officers who can handle the situation must be put in the right place so as to avoid such incidents in the future,” he added.
Of video evidence
“If there is video evidence on Tura violence, then the police have done their job. We are not denying that we need evidence and if there is video evidence, the court of law will see it and accordingly the judgment will be passed,” Pyngrope said.
