By IANS,
Shillong : Meghalaya’s outlawed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC) Thursday called for 36-hour shutdown starting from 6 a.m. on Oct 21 to protest the visit of President Pranab Mukherjee to the state.
The rebel outfit said it has called the shutdown as a mark of protest against the Indian political leadership, which is responsible for all the crisis that has hindered the overall development in Hynniewtrep lands in eastern Meghalaya.
“Oct 21 is being observed as the 25th death anniversary of Wickliffe Syiem, founder of ‘Hynniewtrep Nationalism’, and the planned visit of Mukherjee is a political insult to the Hynniewtrep National Day,” said HNLC spokesman Sainkupar Nongtraw.
Mukherjee will undertake a two-day visit to Shillong from Oct 21, during which he will address the state assembly and visit the Don Bosco Museum, the largest cultural museum in the whole of Asia as far as indigenous cultures of the north east are concerned.
The president, who is also the Visitor of the North Eastern Hill University, will confer degrees to the students during its 21st convocation Oct 22 before returning to Delhi.
Nongtraw also alleged that chiefs belonging to the Hynniewtrep land and the Himas (Khasi states) had never accepted nor agreed to the signing of the Instrument of Accession to India but were forced to sign under duress.
“The Indian government has completely turned a blind eye to the welfare of our nation and our people. Our resources are being exploited by these same political leaders, who are luring the people by giving away schemes which in turn benefit the political leaders,” he said.
Blaming the political leaders for the large scale influx into the tribal, hill state, Nongtraw said: “For the last few decades, we have seen that the issue of influx, the boundary issue, the encroachment of land by security forces are not at all taken seriously by these so called people’s representatives.”
The HNLC, which runs hit-and-run operations from its hideout in Bangladesh, has been demanding a sovereign Khasi homeland in Meghalaya.
Meghalaya shares a 443-km border with Bangladesh, part of which is porous, hilly and unfenced and prone to frequent infiltration.