Shillong: The Khasi Students Union is drawing a line in the dirt. Union leaders promised to forcibly shut down government construction work at the Umling Facilitation Centre. They claim the Conrad Sangma administration is betraying the public by trying to swap a vital security checkpoint for a tourist food court.
Pynkmenlang Sanmiet, the union vice-president, inspected the site this Tuesday. He confronted the District Tourism Officer about the scheme. The facility opened in 2020 to track people entering and leaving the state under the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act. Now, that mission is at risk.
Sanmiet says the government is dropping the ball on border security. He noted that officials have stalled on enforcing the 2016 act for years. "The government has failed to effectively implement the MRSSA nearly a decade after it was enacted in 2016," Sanmiet said. He added that the state is ignoring previous promises made to the Legislative Assembly regarding the safety act.
The union says it likes tourism just fine. However, they insist that protecting the borders comes first. If the state keeps pushing the food court plan, the KSU will stop the bulldozers. They plan to meet with top officials soon to demand a policy reversal. Sanmiet warned that "time would determine the course of events" if the government continues to ignore their demands.
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