Imkong Walling
Dimapur | October 5
Seventeen days have lapsed after an inquiry committee was set up to probe into the Pholongoni (Golaghat) incident of September 15, 2010. The three-member probe team is yet to come up with a decisive report detailing the account of the day’s turn of events.
According to reports in the immediate aftermath of the incident, personnel of a company of the 12th (NAP) IR on way to Nagaland, allegedly assaulted and inflicted injury on protesting student members of the Golaghat unit of the All Assam Students’ Union at Pholongoni. In later reports, Nagaland Police Headquarters denied that its personnel physically assaulted the protestors, who were carrying out a road blockade ‘dharna’. Rather, the students injured themselves while fleeing from the scene after the Naga policemen determinedly tried to make way for their convoy of vehicles, PHQ had claimed.
The Home department of Nagaland had ordered an inquiry into the incident on September 18, three days after the incident. A committee consisting of J. Alam, Commissioner & Secretary for Law & Justice; Amardeep Bhatia, Commissioner & Secretary for Personnel & Administrative Reforms and Nihoto Chishi, Secretary for Law & Justice was given a dateline of 15 days by the Home department to come up with a report. The dateline had expired on October 3.
According to reliable sources, contradictory versions have emerged as to the progress of the inquiry.
One source, on condition of anonymity, disclosed that that a report has already been completed. The report contains the personal statements of all the police personnel present that particular day at the site of the incident, the source said, besides the recorded accounts of those from Assam’s side. However, another insider said, also on anonymity, that the report is yet to be complete. The probe team will be praying for an extension of the timeframe by seven more days, the source said.
The Home department is yet to receive the report. When contacted Tuesday evening Principal Secretary for Home C J Ponraj confirmed that the inquiry part is over, although the department has not received the report yet. He said that the inquiry committee has requested for some more time citing they are awaiting “some corroborative details from the telecom”, though the actual investigation has been done with.
Home Minister Imkong L. Imchen when contacted maintained that the time given to the committee was not a ‘deadline’, rather a ‘timeframe’. “If there is a delay, there maybe reasons”, he said. He however, did not dwell on the reasons behind the delay. “I don’t want to speculate on the progress of the inquiry”. When complete, the HM said, the report will take the bureaucratic route through the Principal Home Secretary and then finally to the Home Ministry.
