Oting remembers. And Oting grieves the lives lost and injured, but they prefer to remain silent.
On the fateful evening of December 4, 2021, the Army’s 21 Para Special Force opened fire on a pick-up van that was carrying six coal miners from Tiru to Oting village in Mon district, Nagaland. They had apparently mistaken the group of workers for insurgents. Secen more people were killed after a crowd of protestors then set fire to vehicles belonging to the Army. Another civilian was killed when a mob attacked an Assam Rifles camp at Mon town the next day.
But villagers have long dismissed it as a ‘mistaken identity’. In an earlier interview with Outlook, the people called it a “direct marise” while showing photos of the windscreen of the pickup that has holes punctured into it.
Following the uproar of the incident, Union Minister Amit Shah told Lok Sabha that the Army had received information on the movement of insurgents in Mon and the 21 Para Commando unit had laid an ambush near Tiru mines.
“It cannot be an act of mistaken identity and it is a nonsensical claim. However, we cannot ascertain the larger motif behind the killings. We never knew what their plan was, what they wanted but definitely wanted to cover it up with the notion of ‘mistaken identity’,” Keapwang Konyak, a member of the Oting Student’s Union, tells Outlook.
Last year, in May, the Nagaland government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to look into the killings. Based on the SIT report, the Nagaland Police filed a chargesheet accusing 30 personnel of the operations team for “not following the Standard Operating Procedure and the Rules of Engagement” and resorting to “indiscriminate and disproportionate firing”.
However, no actions have been reportedly initiated against the accused, as alleged by the villagers.
Northeast Elections
With elections around the corner, Keapwang says, “No one is willing to take the responsibility of talking about this anymore. And we lack powerful resources to bring forth the issue.”
Further Keapwang sheds light on the lack of education and development that holds back the families of the victims from fighting for justice. So, they choose to grieve in silence and stay shut about it.
“Only a few small-scale organisations, such as ours’, are continuing with our fights for the families. But our jurisdiction and authority are too minuscule before the vast powers of the politics on the other side,” says Keapwang.
A year has passed since the harrowing incident yet, the injured have not received any help except the bare-minimum medical cost for treatment. Today, they are hardly able to move and walk out of the house to provide for their families. They have not been given any job or extended any further financial aid.
“Nearly four people were left severely injured following the scuffle. And they still lie neglected. No governments have bothered to check on them,” says the student leader, who along with other students, has submitted letters to authorities demanding help. But over six months have passed and they are yet to receive any response.
Nyamto Konyak, a retired school teacher in Mon district, tells Outlook that the entire government has been involved in the incident. Konyak, who is currently fighting against corruption ahead of the elections on February 27, refuses to make any further comments.
While maintaining that there has been a 'delay in justice' for the victims of this tiny hamlet of Nagaland, people prefer to remain silent over the horror that continues to pervade their lives.
