Morung Express News
Phek | December 22
A youth from Phek Village was physically assaulted by some members of its village youth organization for voicing support to the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) Clean Election Campaign.
In a belated report received here, the youth identified as Khochiyi, hailing from Phek Village was allegedly assaulted by the Phek Village Youth Organization (PVYO) on the allegation of propagating the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) Clean Election Campaign guidelines at Phek Village.
The victim disclosed that he was summoned by the PVYO on December 19, 2016 at their office around 4:30 to 5:00 pm and was trashed black and blue after blindfolding him. He was also verbally abused.
After the physical and mental torture, the victim was told not to spread word about the incident. Khochiyi said the PVYO were incensed that he was asking people’s opinion from the village and obtaining their voluntary signatures of those who were in favour of the Clean Election movement by upholding the NBCC guidelines.
Maintaining that it was unfair to impose a political resolution to support one particular candidate for three consecutive terms (since 2003 till date), Khochiyi alleged that those who voiced out against such undemocratic decisions were threatened, manhandled and harassed.
“I was impressed by the NBCC guidelines on clean election campaign and wanted to get the opinion of the villagers whether they support the democratic means of electoral voting or this ugly culture of imposing a particular candidate on every individual,” Khochiyi said.
It may be recalled that the Phek Village Council had only recently announced their resolution to support a particular candidate in a section of the local dailies. Further sources from the victim’s family informed that prior to the incident, the victim was also warned to submit the list of the signatures to the youth organization.
PVYO president when contacted admitted that a youth was “punished” for going against the resolution of the village council.
However, the youth organization president claimed that the said victim was not punished for supporting the NBCC election campaign but because of other motives. The motive behind the physical harassment meted out to the victim was not elaborated.
