Monalisa Changkija
The demand for the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, (AFSPA) is not recent in Nagaland but is now amplified particularly after the massacre of 14 people in the Oting-Tiru area of Mon District, on December 4 and 5. “Massacre” it definitely is, as also a blatant fake encounter, which is now more or less established ~ the evidence is irrefutable. And, never mind what Union Home Minister Amit Shah said in Parliament soon after ~ he simply parroted the Assam Rifles/Army line, which was mailed to all media houses in the form of a press release. Unfortunate that the Home Minister spoke too early without any reports of preliminary investigation to back up his statement in Parliament ~ thus proving to the entire world that he has not the faintest clue about what the Assam Rifles/Army are up to in our corner of the country. But it is also possible that the Assam Rifles/Army in Nagaland and Northeastern areas under the AFSPA have the green signal to act with impunity and wreck havoc here. That’s what the AFSPA is anyway.
And, act with impunity and wreck havoc here the Assam Rifles/Army certainly has ~ for a very long time. Consider this:
• Pochury Black Day is observed till today particularly in Phor, Yisi and Matikhrü villages because on September 1, 1960, six civilians of Phor village were tortured to death. On September 3, 1960 another 3 civilians of Yisi village were beaten to death. Another 9 innocent lives were taken by the 16th Punjab Regiment and their dead bodies were dumped inside the village chief’s house and burned down along with other houses and granaries in Matikhrü village. Within a span of a week, 18 innocent lives were lost.
• On December 9, 1970, 18 girls and 9 married women were mass raped by Indian Troops and 53 women were molested at Cheswezy.
• On July 11, 1971, Army personnel sacrilegiously raped 4 teenage girls at the pulpit of a church at Yenkeli. For Nagas, the church is a sacred institution and such profanity is not tolerated. Till today, the church remains forlorn. In 1956, before AFSPA came into force, this village was burned down to ashes and all the villagers were forced to hide in the jungles till 1959.
• On January 8, 1987, while returning from the field, 13 civilians of Sheanghah Mokok village were ambushed by the Army. Three civilians were declared spot dead while 10 were gravely injured. This happened despite the villagers declaring themselves as civilians but the Indian armed forces did not hesitate to shoot at them.
• On July 9, 1987, Operation Bluebird was launched by 21 Assam Rifles, which lasted till October 1987 at Oinam. On that day, 27 Persons were killed, 3 women were raped and 5 women sexually molested. The 21 Assam Rifles tortured more than 300 persons, burned down 125 residential houses and dismantled 112 houses, 6 Schools and 10 Churches.
• On December 27, 1994, one patrol of a Task Force of the 16 Maratha Light Infantry gunned down 7 civilians, 5 were burned alive including one infant and more than a dozen individuals went missing. Eighty-nine shops, 48 houses, 17 vehicles and 7 two-wheelers were razed to ashes, excluding those destroyed by gunfire and shelling at Mokokchung
• On January 26, 1995, a young mother, breast-feeding her 1-year-old baby, was shot dead at Akhuluto. The baby’s arm was fractured.
• On March 5, 1995, Kohima Town was under siege for 2 hours by the 16 Rashtriya Rifles consequent to a tyre bursting from their own convoy. Seven persons including 2 minor girls of 3-and-half-years and an 8-year-old child were killed, 22 persons were injured by shrapnel and bullets, 15 were physically assaulted and 22 persons were arrested and tortured. Out of the total victims, 14 were women.
• On August 15, 1996, the 17 Assam Rifles forcibly gathered the men-folk at Tseminyu South village in the RSA Ground and brutally tortured them at gun point. Reportedly 1006 live ammunition were fired and 3 hand grenades were hurled at the innocent civilians. Miraculously none of them exploded. Four innocent civilians were killed including a student. Over the years, those who survived the incident gradually succumbed to the injuries they sustained.
• On July 16, 2015, two minor students, Master Tuzali and Miss Aso were killed and one pregnant mother named Esther was injured in the indiscriminate firing by the 46 Assam Rifles C’ Coy of Akhegwo post, under the command of Major Surinder Singh, at Wuzu.
• On December 4, 2021, the massacre at Oting. While 8 innocent coal miners were returning home from a mining site, 6 civilians were brutally killed in cold blood in broad daylight while 2 were seriously injured by the 21 Para Forces. Another 7 civilians, who belonged to the search party, were mercilessly killed on that fateful evening. On the following day, another civilian was killed while protesting against the Armed forces’ brutal act.
The list is by no means complete ~ but just a curtain raiser because every village in Nagaland has huge tomes of stories to tell, all tragedies. And, these stories all began since the 1950s ~ or let’s say these stories are as old as the AFSPA. So, the question is: why are we still demanding the repeal of this Act in 2021? That is another story by itself ~ much of which has enormous political implications that encompass the Centre, the State(s), political parties and personalities, ideologies and bankruptcy of ideas, etc. Much as the AFSAPA is made out to be a consequence of insurgency, it has much more complicated roots and branches. If AFSPA was the panacea to insurgency, the latter would have been forgotten history in Nagaland and Northeast. While the Nagaland Assembly held a special session on AFSPA on December 20 last, and resolved to demand to the Government of India to repeal the AFSPA 1958 from the Northeast, especially Nagaland, besides urge negotiators of Indo-Naga political dialogue to bring the talks to its logical conclusion for peace to prevail, consider this also: The Nagaland Government resolution against AFSPA was adopted in the Assembly for the third time on December 20, 2021. The earlier resolutions were passed on March 3, 1971 and July 27, 2015. Please note the intervening periods of these resolutions, as well as the time-line of the Armed Forces acting with impunity and wrecking havoc. I rest my case.
Technology has enabled the Oting massacre and the AFSPA to attract national and international traction but tomorrow there will be another story in the media to grab people’s attention. People have short memories and shorter attention span. Unless one is directly affected by these brutalities costing lives and limbs, one moves on which is why it is easier for these brutalities to occur and for AFSPA to be just a periodic object of contempt ~ worse still just another topic of discussion particularly in the media and seminars. Consider this further: besides the demand for repeal of the Act, the other demand here is for an inquiry to be headed by a retired Judge of the High Court or Supreme Court ~ a very valid demand. But, let us recall that Justice (Retd.) DM Sen of the Gauhati High Court headed the inquiries of the incidents of December 27, 1994 at Mokokchung, of January 23 at Akhulato, 1995 and of March 5, 1995 at Kohima and submitted his reports on March 16, 1996 (Mokokchung), on March 18, 1996 (Akhulato) and on March 5, 1996 (Kohima). However, we are still in the dark about the action taken against the guilty, as also ex-gratia payments and other compensations thereof. Disregard for human beings and the rule of law, as also the culture of impunity are, indeed, a debilitating infirmity that severely afflicts the nation’s powers-that-be, especially in regards to our corner of the country ~ something no amount of ‘development’ can recompense.
(The Columnist, a journalist and poet, is Editor, Nagaland Page. This article was published in the Assam Tribune on December 23, 2021 in her monthly column Primary Motifs)
