Assam Meghalaya govts to urge CBI to take over probe into 2022 Mukroh border violence

    Guwahati, Sep 30 (PTI) The governments of Assam and Meghalaya on Saturday decided to request the CBI to take over the investigation into the 2022 Mukroh violence along the disputed interstate boundary, in which six people were killed.
    Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad Sangma, in a joint media briefing after holding talks to resolve the interstate boundary dispute, said both states have decided to wind up their respective judicial commissions probing the Mukroh violence.
    ''As a confidence-building measure, we have decided to wind up our respective judicial commissions probing the Mukroh incident. Instead, both the state governments will now urge the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate the matter," Sarma said.
    He said that the agency will be requested not to register the case in either Guwahati or Shillong but in a neutral location such as Delhi, Kolkata or any other place.
    Sangma said it has been decided to wind up the respective judicial commissions as neither side has been able to make much progress because the witnesses of either state have not gone to the other side to depose before the commission of that state.
    "We want a fair and impartial inquiry. So, we decided to refer it to an independent agency, namely the CBI," Sangma said.
    Six people, including five Meghalaya residents and a forest guard from Assam, were killed in a firing incident in Mukroh along a disputed section of the Assam-Meghalaya interstate boundary on November 22 last year.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)