At least 11 students were killed and about 90 people wounded Friday in police firing in Meghalaya in northeast India, local news agency Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported Friday from Shillong.

A government spokesman said police opened fire to disperse thousands of students who, defying prohibitory orders, took to the streets in Tura and William Nagar districts to oppose the Meghalya government's plan to shift the headquarters of the Meghalaya Board of Secondary Education (MBOSE) from Tura to Shillong, the IANS dispatch said.

"Five students died in Tura and six in William Nagar when police opened fire on mobs that were carrying out coordinated attacks on the offices of the district magistrates in the two headquarters," Meghalaya Education Minister Mukul Sangma told IANS.

Some 90 people, most of them students and security personnel, were seriously injured in the violence. The injured include 54 policemen and three senior magistrates. A magisterial probe has been ordered into the police firing.

The minister said the condition of many of the injured was critical. Authorities clamped an indefinite curfew in the two district headquarters of Tura and William Nagar with the army and paramilitary soldiers called out to prevent a further backlash.

"The firing in the two district headquarters was unprovoked," Overstone Marak, general secretary of the Garo Hill Citizens Forum, a rights group, said.

The controversy over relocation of MOBOSE has been an emotive issue with the tribal Khasis and Garos engaged in a bitter war of words for more than four months now. The rallies were organized by the Garo Students' Union.

"MBOSE for us is a prestige issue and we shall shed blood but not allow the head office to be shifted to the Khasi Hills ( Shillong)," Marak said.

Source: Xinhua