Snatched police weapons recovered from Umkhrah river

The East Khasi Hills district police and personnel from the Meghalaya Fire and Emergency Services have recovered the weapons, which were snatched by unidentified youths from a police vehicle during the violent protests on August 15, from the Umkhrah river in the city, on Monday.

A search operation, led by G Muktan, officer-in-charge of the search and rescue wing of the fire department along with eleven personnel, retrieved the weapons near the Umpohliew Bridge on the river. Out of the three weapons, only one has the magazine attached, informed the police, adding that the search was conducted within a 50 metres-radius of the bridge.

On August 20, an anonymous letter addressed to the Superintendent of Police (SP) and the Mawlai Town Dorbar was dropped at the office of a local daily stating that the sender and his friends have dumped the firearms in the river after they found some teenagers fiddling with them near the Umpohliew Bridge.

 "We had no clue if the claims made in the letter were true or not. But as a newspaper, we had to publish the letter because this is a serious issue. More so, because an appeal was issued by the local leaders urging those who have taken the weapons to hand them over or reveal the location where they have hidden them," said Reigning Lyngdoh Mawphlang, a senior journalist at whose office the letter was dropped.

He added that the police were expected to act as soon as the news was published, but that didn’t happen. “Maybe the police had some doubts about the claims in the letter. But today, we all have witnessed a successful search operation," added Mawphlang.

Meanwhile, the Meghalaya police have issued a press statement thanking the cooperation of the Mawlai Town dorbar and the youths for their help in the search operation.

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