Shillong: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma announced on Tuesday that he would personally take up the United States’ travel advisory issue that flagged Meghalaya as “unsafe” for travel with the US Ambassador to India.
He asserted that the travel advisory issued by the United States linking the state and the northeastern region with terrorism and violence is “incorrect”.
The Chief Minister said he would meet the US Ambassador to India soon to clarify and request a revision of the advisory.
Notably, the US government had recently issued an advisory asking its citizens to reconsider visiting Meghalaya and other northeastern states due to terrorism and violence.
Permission is not required if employees are travelling only to the capital cities of these states, it said.
CM Sangma said that the Level-2 advisory issued by the US State Department cautioning its citizens against visiting Meghalaya paints an “unfair picture of the state”.
“I will be going and meeting the US Ambassador, and through the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs, I will inform them that this kind of notification has come out, which is absolutely incorrect,” Sangma said.
He added that he hoped the explanation and necessary coordination with the Ministry of External Affairs would help rectify what he described as a “wrong notification”.
Voicing disappointment over the continued perception of Meghalaya as unsafe, Sangma said, “It’s very sad that even today, the media asks questions about the safety of Meghalaya. Enough is enough. These kinds of questions should not be asked. Meghalaya is absolutely safe — this has been proven beyond doubt.”
The Chief Minister urged the media to play a constructive role in countering negative narratives and to become advocates for the state and its people.
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Responding to the advisory, Deputy Chief Minister Prestone Tynsong said, “It’s unfortunate that the US has issued such an advisory. We don’t know where they collect their information from to place Meghalaya in that category.”
