At least nine people including a woman were injured after militants belonging to the Garo National liberation Army (GNlA) triggered a powerful blast at East Garo Hills district headquarters, William Nagar in Meghalaya’s troubled Garo Hills region on Saturday.
East Garo Hills Superintendent of Police, Davis N Marak said that a total of nine people were injured including a woman during the incident. The conditions of three of the injured were stated to be serious and they were shifted to Tura for better treatment, he said.
The SP said that the GNlA militants are involved behind the blast.
“The blast took place near a wine shop in William Nagar. Initially, we thought it to be a grenade blast. However, preliminary investigation indicated it to be an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast. We are, however, not sure whether any time device had been used to trigger the blast,” said the SP.
Marak said that there the police had intelligence inputs that the GNlA militants are going to trigger serial blasts across Meghalaya’s Garo Hills region. The security had already been tightened across the Garo Hills region of the State in the wake of intelligence inputs.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) of Meghalaya Police, GHP Raju said that a senior GNlA cadre Ajan Monin had assigned a cadre to trigger the blasts. Momin is one of the commanders of the outfit in William Nagar.
It may be mentioned here that the GNlA, who claim to have been fighting for a separate homeland for the Garos, had been running a reign of terror in Garo Hills region of Meghalaya mainly by carrying out massive extortion drives and abducting government officials as well as private company officials.
On November 3 last year, the Meghalaya High Court has asked the Centre to enforce the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Garo Hills region of the state considering the deteriorating law and order scenario. According to the official statistics, the insurgents in Garo Hills have abducted a total of 87 persons for ransom including 25 civilians, 27 businessmen, 25 employees of private Sector, five government employees and five teachers between January to October last year.
Civil society organizations and the state government, however, opposed the High Court’s decision to enforce AFSPA in the Garo Hills and saying that the state police are able to deal with the militants.