LONG HARM OF THE LAW

With the massacre of the innocent in Mon district, the Armed Forces Special Powers Act has once again come under the scanner

- NAMRATA BIJI AHUJA

It was late in the evening when T. Chongmei, a 32-year-old small-time mining contractor in Oting village in Nagaland’s Mon district, went in search of his missing relatives. It was December 4, and news had spread of civilians being killed in an Army operation gone horribly wrong. Chongmei had walked barely five kilometres when he got caught in a clash between soldiers and protesting civilians. Shot in the foot, he fell to the ground. And the rest of the evening became a throbbing blur.

Thirteen civilians were killed that day. The reason: commandos of the Army’s 21 Para Special Forces had waited in ambush for militants belonging to a banned faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang). They apparently mistook for militants a group of eight miners returning from work. According to the Army, the vehicle carrying the miners was signalled to stop, but it “tried to flee”. Six miners died after soldiers opened fire. More lives, including a soldier’s, were lost in the violent protests after the botched operation.

Chongmei is being treated at the district hospital in Mon. He is mourning the death of his friend Hokup Konyak, whose wedding he had attended a few days before. He said some of the injured people might never be able to work and support their families. “I earn around ₹400 a day working in the fields,” Chongmei said. “We are not like farmers in north or south India, where they grow crops throughout the year. We get work for 3-4 months, and live in uncertainty after that.”