Shillong, Feb. 26: At least 17 people were killed and 62 others critically injured on Sunday when a truck they were travelling in rammed into the concrete barricade along a road in Meghalaya’s West Khasi Hills district, police said.
The overcrowded truck with over 70 people travelling in it was proceedings towards Nonglang village to attend the synod of Presbyterian Church.
“The final count of bodies from the accident site at Jadohkroh village and those who succumbed to injuries in hospital is 17 and those critically injured is 62,” Sylvester Nongtnger, district police chief of West Khasi Hills, told IANS.
The toll could increase as most of the injured were in critical condition, he said.
Nongtnger said preliminary investigations indicated that the accident occurred due to over-speeding, which led to the truck ramming against the concrete barricade - and hurling the occupants of the carrier into the gorge along the road.
“We have registered a case against the driver under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Motor Vehicles Act,” the police official said.
Expressing grief over the loss of lives in the accident, state Home Minister H.D.R. Lyngdoh promised action against those involved as per provisions of the law.
Meghalaya’s most wanted militant killed
Shillong, Feb 26: Meghalaya’s Special Force-10 (SF-10) commandos have shot dead a militant leader, wanted in killings of two Meghalaya jail officials and seven Assam tribesmen, a police official said on Sunday.
Singbirth N Marak alias Norrok X Momin, a former military wing chief of the United A’chik Liberation Army (UALA), was killed and four or five of his followers were injured in a fierce gunfight on Saturday, a police official said.
One AK-rifle, one pistol and a grenade were recovered from the gunbattle site.
Based on intelligence inputs, the commandos raided Matronggre forested area, 11 km of Resubelpara, the headquarters of North Garo Hills district, about 315 km west of Meghalaya state capital of Shillong.
“The gunfight began when the armed militants fired at the commandos and refused to surrender,” Dalton P Marak, the district police chief of North Garo Hills, told IANS over phone.
Norrok, who earlier surrendered before Chief Minister Mukul Sangma, was on the run after the government decided to take action against him for the killings of two Williamnagar prisons officials in East Garo Hills in 2010 and of seven Rabha tribesmen in Assam’s Goalapara district in 2013.
In fact, the UALA was formally disbanded after Norrok and the outfit’s chairman Novembirth Marak and 68 cadres surrendered with their weapons and ammunition to the Chief Minister on June 10 last year.
Police officials said that the death of Norrok is the deadliest blow to his newly formed United A’chik National Front (UANF) militant outfit, which operates in Meghalaya and Assam border areas.
“Norrok’s death in the gun battle was a major achievement for us (Meghalaya Police) as he along with William Sangma, a hardcore criminal, was trying to raise the ugly head of militancy in the bordering areas with the help of NDFB (National Democratic Front of Bodoland) militants,” Dalton said. The police official said that the combing operation is on to nab the fleeing militants.
