Shillong: A piercing, loud thud rudely woke up 28-year-old Grainui F.G. Diengdoh from slumber just a couple of hours before dawn. His younger brother, Olifin Z.G. Diengdoh, who was asleep next to him, also woke up. It took them a while to realise they weren’t dreaming.
When they opened their room’s door to the common area on the third floor of their home in the Mawlai region of Shillong, the brothers found their father lying in a pool of blood, with his right arm stretching out.
He was crying out to them in pain, “ani, ani” — a Khasi expression.
On 13 August, 54-year-old Cherishterfield Thangkhiew, a former militant and founding general secretary of outlawed separatist outfit Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), was shot in the abdomen by Meghalaya Police in “self-defence” during a raid at his home.
“It was all over in under a minute,” Grainui told ThePrint. The ambulance came within 10 minutes, and took Thangkhiew’s body to Civil Hospital Shillong.
“The police covered our heads with a blanket and started whispering. We were made to lie down on the ground for over an hour and beaten up,” Grainui alleged.
The police asked the sons who they were and where the weapons were kept. “My brother is a security guard at a university campus in Shillong. But they mistook us for our father’s security guards,” Grainui said.
The sons were allegedly first taken to Sadar Police Station, where they were kept for two hours, following which they were en route to the Khliehriat Police Station when the car was stopped at the Jowai bypass. “By now they realised who we were, DSP Khliehriat apologised. After a medical examination at Civil Hospital Shillong, we went home,” Grainui said as he recalled the events of the night.
The top floor of their three-storey home — where the incident took place — has four rooms, a bathroom and a common area.
On 21 August, ThePrint visited the house and saw damaged locks and cupboards. There were markings on the wall where the family alleged Thangkhiew’s blood splattered, and neat, circular holes carved in two walls where the bullet hit and deflected after going through his abdomen.
According to the police, the raid — led by East Jaiñtia Hills police chief Jagpal Singh Dhanoa and East Khasi Hills Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Shailendra Bamaniya — was aimed at arresting the ex-militant on the suspicion of his involvement in two IED blasts that took place in July and August. But after Thangkhiew allegedly wielded a knife at them, a shot was fired.
“My father did not have a knife in his hand when we saw him. The police are planting evidence,” Grainui alleged.
Also read: Bomb blast threat, self-defence by police — what led to ‘encounter’ of ex-militant in Meghalaya
‘Police playing a game by not informing local headman’
On 15 August, as Thangkhiew’s funeral procession was ongoing, the city saw widespread arson and violence. The anger among the people, particularly Mawlai inhabitants, was at the manner in which the raid was conducted.
According to them, in Meghalaya’s tribal areas, any such raid is meant to be held only after informing the village headman — a local practice that finds its roots since before British rule. But on 13 August, the police allegedly didn’t follow this protocol.
“The government has also used this system, even though we don’t have any legal recognition, to communicate with the villagers. Whenever they raid a house in our locality, the headmen must be informed,” Dr Marco Mitro, village headman of Mawlai Kynton Massar told ThePrint.
“The officer in charge called me up at around 4.15-4.30 am. But by then his body had already been transferred to the hospital and his sons had been held,” he said, claiming that the “police are playing a game and disregarding authority”.
The arson in the city led to a curfew, Home Minister Lahkmen Rymbui’s resignation, and the constitution of a judicial panel to probe the incident.
In an interview to ThePrint last week, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said the police meant only to arrest the ex-militant, adding that Rymbui’s resignation hadn’t been accepted yet.
Sangma also said the situation had become peaceful as the government was communicating with social and religious leaders, village headmen and welfare organisations.
However, on Saturday, as ThePrint visited the Thangkhiew household and preparations were underway to host family members and neighbours the following day, in accordance with Khasi tradition, anger and distrust was still palpable in the community over the raid.
Also read: Naga couple set to trek to Everest Base Camp to raise funds for orphanage library
Origins of militancy in Meghalaya
Most of the northeast region has been embroiled in land and boundary conflicts since Independence. Over the years, insurgencies spread to nearly every state — at one point there were as many as 120 insurgent groups.
Meghalaya, which was carved out as a state in 1972, is among the northeastern states that have remained largely peaceful in the past few years.
Insurgency here stems from the fear of the “dkhar’s” (outsider) domination. The state’s first insurgent outfit, representing the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo tribes, was the Hynniewtrep Achik Liberation Council.
Owing to differences within the communities, it split in 1992 into the Achik Matgrik Liberation Army (AMLA), representing the Garos, and HNLC, representing the Khasis and the Jaintias.
AMLA soon became irrelevant and was replaced by Achik National Volunteer Council in 1995.
“HNLC was at its peak in 1996. They could kill anyone in broad daylight if people didn’t respond to extortion calls. Business people then collapsed like a house of cards and started paying,” said Patricia Mukhim, editor, Shillong Times, one of the oldest dailies in the region.
HNLC’s activities remained limited primarily to Meghalaya’s Khasi Hills and Shillong where the outfit was involved in extortion and abductions. With its top leadership in Bangladesh, the outfit had “maintained strategic linkages with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM)” during its early days.
It was proscribed by the Indian government in 2000.
Crackdown on militancy in 2000s
In the late 90s and early 2000s, HNLC and Thangkhiew were most feared. During his active years, several encounter attempts were made on Thangkhiew but he survived.
In a bid to curtail the insurgency, former home minister Robert G. Lyngdoh filed a series of FIRs against those who were paying the extortion money.
“HNLC had social acceptance at that time. There were incidents where the father would be in the police and the son in HNLC. The bigger challenge was breaking that,” Lyngdoh told ThePrint.
Recalling how an atmosphere of fear ruled Shillong and everybody paid obeisance to the militants, the former home minister’s aim was to limit their activities by 50-60 per cent.
“We used a lot of unconventional tactics. For instance, to stop people from taking help from the HNLC, we told them its blood money and that tyrut (violent spiritual force) will follow you around. It was more of a mind game than a physical one,” he said.
By 2005, HNLC could no longer wield the power it used to.
However, another militant outfit, the Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA), headed by Sohan D. Shira continued to terrorise the Garo Hills region. Former chief minister Mukul Sangma constituted a Special Task Force, which had 10 companies and 1,795 personnel to carry out counter-insurgency operations.
In February 2018, Shira was killed in an encounter. The following month, eight GNLA rebels surrendered. The same year, Thangkhiew also retired.
“The police used to approach me to convince my father to come back. But I didn’t want to get involved. We barely spoke, I don’t even have a photo with him. When he finally came back in 2018, I couldn’t even recognise him,” Thangkhiew’s son Fer Diengdoh, 30, the oldest of seven siblings, told ThePrint.
Also read: Modi govt wants all Northeast capitals connected by rail. Here’s how many are linked now
What Thangkhiew’s encounter means for militancy in Meghalaya
The 13 August raid came after the police found “incontrovertible evidence” linking two low-intensity IED blasts to Thangkhiew, hinting that he had become active again. Several extortion cases, aimed at businesspeople and politicians, also came to light.
“HNLC has become temporarily relevant. They see a lacuna in the implementation of law and order,” Mukhim explained. “Police should have arrested him, and through him nabbed all the others involved in the blast. There is something sinister behind the killing.”
Underlining how the killing has made Thangkhiew a martyr, Lyngdoh explained it could give a boost to the HNLC.
“Fresh graduates unable to get government jobs could take advantage of the situation and possibly gravitate towards HNLC. The encounter has done more good to the outfit than the police,” he said.
However, others argue that the IED blasts followed by Thangkhiew’s killing are not issues of militancy but of law and order.
Sanjoy Hazarika, director of the Delhi-based Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, said: “The government cannot let its guard down. They need to take a stand but there’s a lack of political will,” he told ThePrint.
For militancy to gain momentum, three factors are crucial — public support, political support and a vision that resonates with the people, Hazarika explained. “All three of these things need to come together and translate into economic support,” he said.
But for Thangkhiew’s family, the fight is for “justice”.
“We are not even in touch with the retired HNLC members, we don’t have a good relationship with them. We just want justice,” Thangkhiew’s younger brother, Granary, told ThePrint.
(Edited by Amit Upadhyaya)
Also read: Assam, Meghalaya to set up regional committees to resolve inter-state border disputes