About West Garo Hills

West Garo Hills is an administrative district in the state of Meghalaya in India. The district headquarters are located at Tura. The district occupies an area of 3714 km² and has a population of 515,813 (as of 2001). The name Tura is a British colonialist distortion of Dura or Durama, the guardian goddess of the range of hills by which this town is bounded. In our time the town became famous as the parliamentary constituency from which Purno Agitok Sangma, former Union minister and Lok Sabha (House of the People) Speaker had been repeatedly reelected from 1975. Tura is also the centre of one of the oldest American Baptist missions in India. The church established by this mission in 1868 still occupies pride of place in the middle of the town. Tura has a mixed population of Garos or Achiks (as they prefer to call themselves), Bengalis, Nepalis, Assamese, members of other ethnic groups such as the Hajongs, Rabhas and Koches, Mizos and a fair sprinkling of South Indians in the Catholic Church, the teaching profession and the paramilitary forces.