Kin of slain Garo woman shifted to ‘safe location’

The two militants had shot the woman, Jospin Sangma, in the head with a shotgun.

Five days after militants of the outlawed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) killed a 32-year-old woman in the South Garo Hills district of Meghalaya, the police have shifted her husband and four children to a “safe location”.
“We had inputs that they (the GNLA) were planning to target the family of the woman, so we have shifted them,” a senior police officer in the South Garo Hills district told The Indian Express on Sunday.
The two militants had shot the woman, Jospin Sangma, in the head with a shotgun after barging into her shop-cum-residence in Raja Rongat on Tura Baghmara PWD road on June 3. The militants had identified her as “Tanisha’s mother” and accused her of being a police informer.
Her husband, Abel A Sangma, and four children — three of them girls — were all witness to the incident. They were shifted to another location on Saturday in view of a possible attack. The family originally hails from Duragre village and was staying at a tea stall in Raja Rongat because it was close to a Christian Missionary school.
“We have inputs that the GNLA is angry with the family as news spread that the woman was killed when she resisted a rape attempt. The public outcry across Meghalaya had also seriously affected the morale of the militant group,” the police officer said.
Meghalaya home minister Roshan Warjiri had on Thurday announced that the government would take up the responsibility of educating the four children — the eldest, Tanisha, 11, and the youngest, Menobarth, 4.

Meanwhile, a GNLA militant died at hospital in Baghamara on Saturday after he and another accomplice were beaten up by residents of a village where they had gone to demand money.
“The two were caught by villagers in Jaksongram on Saturday afternoon, beaten up and handed over to the police. We shifted them to the hospital but one of them died in the evening,” A T Sangma, additional SP of the district said.