Meghalaya has witnessed an almost continuous diminution in trends in militant violence since 2003, with a slight discontinuity in 2006. The years 2008 and 2009 saw the progressive marginalization of militant formations in the State, even as overall fatalities declined by 66 per cent, from an already diminished total. Militancy-related incidents decreased by 41 percent, and there was a complete absence of any civilian or Security Force (SF) fatalities in 2009. A total of 4 militant fatalities were recorded.
Militancy related incidents were reported from all of Meghalaya's seven Districts in 2009. While the East Khasi Hills was the most affected District, with 18 recorded incidents, Jaintia Hills reported 12 incidents; West Garo Hills, six; East Garo Hills, five; West Khasi Hills: four, Ri-Bhoi, three; and South Garo Hills, one.
The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) database records that a total of 62 militants were neutralised in Meghalaya in 2009. Of these, 48 were arrested, 10 surrendered and four were killed.
The proscribed Hynniewtrep National Liberation Council (HNLC), remains the strongest among surviving militant groups. Claiming to represent the majority Khasi tribe, the HNLC continued to operate in the Khasi-Jaintia Hills region in 2009. Extortion targeting local traders across the India-Bangladesh border constituted the bulk of HNLC’s activities. Media reports in March 2009 mentioned that, after Police successes in curbing the HNLC’s extortion drive, the group began targeting local traders in the border region. The HNLC has over 100 cadres, most of them located in Bangladesh. Difficult living conditions and the absence of facilities in the neighbouring country have provoked the surrender of many cadres in Meghalaya. According to the SATP database, at least nine HNLC cadres surrendered in Jaintia and East Khasi Hills District in 2009. One of them reveled that leaders of the proscribed outfit were leading a luxurious life, despite acute privations among the rank and file in Bangladesh.
On December 5, 2009, the Meghalaya Chief Minister D.D. Lapang appealed to HNLC ‘general secretary’ Cherishterfield Thangkhiew and ‘commander-in-chief’ Bobby Marwein to come over-ground and also offered them ‘safe-passage.’ The HNLC leadership, however, rejected the offer.
Purportedly representing the Garo tribe, the Achik National Volunteer Council (ANVC) has been under an extended cease-fire agreement with the Union Government since July 23, 2004. The ANVC has renewed its demand for a separate State of Garoland, after the Centre initiated the process for the creation of a new State of Telangana, bifurcating the south Indian State of Andhra Pradesh. The outfit’s ‘publicity secretary’, Arist Sengsrang Sangma, on December 11, 2009, declared that, with the Centre taking steps to create a Telangana State, the ANVC’s demands would also be justified in days to come: "Our demand is very much genuine and we are not asking for the sun or moon, but a separate State within India, unlike other militant groups, which are demanding sovereignty." Earlier, the Union Government reportedly rejected the outfit’s demand for a separate Garo State, when the Joint Secretary (in-charge of Northeast) of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Naveen Verma, held a series of meetings with senior Meghalaya Government officials and discussed a rehabilitation package for the ANVC on September 10, 2009. Meanwhile, the Meghalaya Police sought the help of the ANVC to neutralise other militant groups in the Garo Hills. The ANVC leader Arist Sengsrang Sangma stated that the outfit was ready to help the Meghalaya Police.
Since the cease-fire with the ANVC, several fringe militant formations had filled the vacuum in the Garo Hills, primarily with the intention of exploiting the lucrative extortion racket. The Liberation of Achik Elite Force (LAEF) led the pack, maintaining linkages with the National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM) in Nagaland, and the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) in Assam. The Garo group had set up its operational camp inside the Balpakram National Park in the South Garo Hills, with the help of the NSCN-IM, to train new LAEF recruits in guerilla warfare tactics.
The Meghalaya Police have registered significant counter-insurgency (CI) successes against the LAEF in 2009. On March 24, the Police neutralized a LAEF camp in the Tajal area near Shahlang in the West Khasi Hills District. Again, on July 7, the Police arrested three LAEF militants at Sisobibra village in the East Garo Hills District, while they were trying to extort INR 500,000 from an unidentified local businessman. On August 20, an unidentified LAEF militant was shot dead by the East Garo Hills District Police during an encounter at Nengkra near Williamnagar. On November 22, the Police neutralized another LAEF hideout and arrested five cadres, including ‘sergeant major’ Kyndoh Momin, during a CI operation at Byrnihat in the Ri-Bhoi District along the Meghalaya-Assam border. Outside Meghalaya, on January 17, two cadres of another tiny armed Garo group, People’s Liberation Front of Meghalaya (PLF-M), including its founding ‘general secretary’ John Jubilee D. Shera Marak (34), were shot dead by the Army during an encounter at Hat Hati bridge near Singhimari village on National Highway-37 in the Bongaigaon District of Assam.
Meghalaya’s militancy flows substantially from activities of militant formations in the neighbouring States. Groups such as ULFA and NDFB in Assam have used the Garo Hills to travel between Assam and their base areas in Bangladesh. On June 5, 2009, a suspected NDFB linkman was arrested by Border Security Force (BSF) personnel from the Nokchi outpost in the West Garo Hills District, while trying to exfiltrate to Bangladesh. Similarly, on June 11, 2009, two ULFA militants were shot dead by a joint team of the Meghalaya Police and the Army at Bangalpara village in the same West Garo Hills District. One of them was an ‘area commander’ of the outfit for the entire Garo Hills and was involved in the smuggling of arms and ammunition from Bangladesh through the Garo Hills border to Assam. Assam’s armed groups also continue to engage in extortion in the Jaintia Hills region. On January 3, 2009, an NDFB militant, who, along with HNLC militants, was involved in an extortion drive in the coalfields of Jaintia Hills District, was arrested after being wounded in an encounter with the Police, in the Shohksih coal mining area. He subsequently succumbed to his injury. A media report on January 16, 2009, mentioned that Assam's Karbi Anglong District-based militant groups, the Karbi National Volunteers and United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS), were engaged in extortion activities targeting civilians belonging to the Pnar tribe of Jaintia Hills residing in the Block-I area on the Meghalaya-Assam border. Several villages, including Mooluber, Psiar, Moojem and Deinler, were served demand notes ranging from INR 200 to INR 1,000 per household, depending on their family income. The Black Widow (BW) group in Assam, and the Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) and People's Liberation Army (PLA) in Manipur, also operate in Meghalaya.
The 15th Parliamentary elections were held in Meghalaya’s two constituencies of Shillong and Tura on April 16, 2009. While the HNLC called for a 24-hour general shutdown in protest against the visit of the Congress party president, Sonia Gandhi, to address a public meeting in capital Shillong on April 13, 2009, as much as 64. 41 per cent voter turnout was registered in the elections in the State.
An unfenced 65 kilometre stretch of Meghalaya’s 443 kilometre-long border with Bangladesh continues to allow the inward and outward movement of militants. This is the principal reason for the persistence of the militancy, albeit at its lowest ebb, in the State. There is, however, projection for the complete fencing of India-Bangladesh border till 2010. Unless the security establishment in Meghalaya refocuses its strategy on this militant vantage point, the vestiges of militancy will continue to linger in the State.