Shillong (Meghalaya), July 26: The Hynniewtrep National Youth Federation (HNYF) today prevented tourist taxis and private cars with Assam registration to tourist destinations in Dawki and Sohra as they felt that that Meghalaya registered vehicles were being prevented from taking passengers to those destinations.
Police immediately rushed to the area and picked up 10 members of the organization and brought the situation under control.
The blockade, at Umtyngar junction which is around 20 kilometers from Shillong was as a mark of protest by the organisation to stop vehicles from Assam ferrying tourists to the popular tourist destinations in Shillong.
Deputy CM Prestone Tynsong while taking to media, said if the pressure groups have any grievances, they should come to the government rather taking law into their hands.
It may be mentioned that All Khasi Meghalaya Tourist Taxi Association had appealed to the state government to implement a ban on vehicles from other states ferrying passengers as out of 3,543 vehicles bringing tourists into the state, 2,437 were from outside Meghalaya, while only 1,106 were local vehicles.
Meanwhile, the stakeholders in the tourism industry strongly condemned the unfortunate incident that happened this morning where tourists and travelers have been illegally stopped from proceeding to the various tourist spots in Sohra and Dawki region by so called NGO/pressure group.
In a statement they said that the tourism industry in the state has reached its momentum in the last few years and today’s single incident has affected the arduous work that the stakeholders have built up over the years.
According to them, today’s incident has created a loss of 30% of the accommodation bookings apart from revenue generated by indirect stakeholders apart from another 50% cancellation of tours and activities from tomorrow onwards as news of this incident has travelled rapidly all over the country.
