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Updated September 2nd, 2021 at 15:03 IST

Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma meets PM Modi; invites him to 50th Statehood Day event in 2022

Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma on Thursday met PM Modi on Thursday to personally invite PM Modi to Meghalaya for the state's 50th Statehood Day on Jan 21, 2022

Meghalaya
IMAGE: PMOIndia | Image:self
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Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma on Thursday met PM Modi on Thursday in Delhi along with speaker Metbah Lyngdoh to personally invite PM Modi to Meghalaya for the state's 50th Statehood Day on Jan 21, 2022. Meghalaya was carved out of Assam as a separate state in 1972. This meeting comes days after clashes at the Shillong-Assam border where a police officer of Meghalaya was injured. 

Meghalaya CM meet PM

Last week, a Shillong police officer was injured while trying to control a situation after large groups of people from  Assam came face to face near a disputed inter-state border area Ri-Bhoi. The incident took place at Umlaper in West Karbi Anglong district of Assam where a group of around 250-300 people from Ri-Bhoi district of Meghalaya went to meet the two men with whom Assam police personnel allegedly misbehaved on Monday night. Protestors from Assam damaged a bunker during a protest, blocked the road and engaged in an altercation with the people from Meghalaya.

The problem between the two states started when Meghalaya challenged the Assam Reorganisation Act of 1971, which gave Blocks I and II of the Mikir Hills or present-day Karbi Anglong region to Assam. Meghalaya contends that both these blocks formed part of the erstwhile United Khasi and Jaintia Hills district when it was notified in 1835. At present, there are 12 points of dispute along the 733-km Assam-Meghalaya border. The chief ministers of the two states had held two rounds of talks since July at the end of which it was decided to set up two regional committees to resolve the vexed border disputes in a phased manner.

Former militant killed in encounter

Recently, violence was reported in Shillong as Cheristerfield Thangkhiew, a militant who had surrendered, was laid to rest at a cemetery in Shillong after being killed by police in an encounter at his home on August 13. Thangkhiew was suspected to be the mastermind of a spate of IED attacks since his surrender in 2018, police said. Thangkhiew allegedly attacked the police with a knife when his home was being raided, provoking a retaliatory shot in which he was killed, an official said.

While the Meghalaya Human Right Commission has ordered a probe into the incident, Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui resigned in protest of Thangkhiew's shooting. However, Sangma defended the police stating the shooting had been an 'unfortunate incident' during his arrest and ordered a magisterial probe. Shillong was put under curfew and mobile internet services was snapped in atleast four districts after violence raged in protest of Thangkhiew's shooting.

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Published September 2nd, 2021 at 15:03 IST

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