Guwahati, May 16 (PTI): The Indian Army’s Eastern Command chief on Monday said that the force has completed the Court of Inquiry into the firing incident in Nagaland where soldiers gunned down more than a dozen civilians in December last year.
Following the killings in Oting area of Mon district in a botched operation and its aftermath, the Army started a Court of Inquiry (CoI), while the state government set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the incident.
“It was a case of mistaken identity and error of judgement. The Army CoI is complete and it is being examined now. We also received the SIT report and both are being analysed,” General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command, Lt Gen R P Kalita, said.
If there is any lapse or fault by anyone, action will be taken irrespective of his rank, he said.
Lt Gen Kalita said Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), which has been in force in the north-eastern state for decades, gives some operational support to the forces working in difficult terrains, but the law was not absolute.
“There are SOPs (standard operating procedures) to be followed. At times, deviations have taken place. Whenever there is deviation, strict actions were taken against the defaulters. In this case also, action will be taken as per the Army Act and requisite laws of the land,” the Army Commander said.
There have been protests and demands for the withdrawal of the AFSPA from Nagaland for its alleged draconian provisions, following the killings by the Army personnel in Oting.
The AFSPA empowers security forces to conduct operations and arrest anyone without any prior warrant besides giving immunity from arrest and prosecution to the security forces if they shoot someone dead.
The Act was withdrawn from 15 police station areas in seven districts in Nagaland with effect from April 1.
On December 4 last year, six coal miners returning from work were killed in a botched ambush by the security forces at Oting, while seven others were gunned down when villagers, angry after discovering the bullet-riddled bodies of the labourers on an Army truck, clashed with the soldiers.
One security personnel was also killed in the melee. Another civilian was killed when a mob attacked an Assam Rifles camp at Mon town the next day.
The Nagaland government had expanded the five-member SIT to a 22-member probe team and divided it into seven groups.
The Army’s Court of Inquiry was headed by a Major General rank officer.
Struggle against extra-judicial killings will go on — GNF
Dimapur, May 16 (EMN): The Global Naga Forum (GNF) has expressed solidarity with the recent statements made by the Naga Club and the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) earlier this month on the Oting and Mon killings.
“We support their stand for justice, truth, and accountability: justice for the victims and their families; truth from the state government and those entrusted to investigate the killings; prosecution of the perpetrators; and accountability for the Indian Army establishment and for Government of India under whose laws the crimes were committed,” read GNF’s statement.
While expressing solidarity with the victims and the Konyak people, the GNF said it had made a detailed report of the Mon incident by gathering information from the families of the victims, the injured, civil society leaders and public. It added that “a formal appeal for justice to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)” has been made as well as submitted the case to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) India.
Meanwhile, it said “the UN’s capacity to intervene in such cases is not assured because of India’s stubborn opposition to the UN’s intervention in human rights violations against Nagas, which have been going on for over sixty years. But GNF is keeping up the pressure and will continue to appeal for justice with the appropriate UN agencies for human and indigenous peoples’ rights”.
“The struggle against extra-judicial killings of Naga civilians by Indian armed forces will go on despite the challenges from India and some quarters within Naga society,” it stated while citing the recent killings in Arunachal Pradesh.
Maintaining that there has been no justice for the victims or punishment for the criminals, it said the Naga people’s movement for justice and self-determination must go on. “The Global Naga Forum is in complete agreement with FNR that ‘AFSPA must be decisively repealed’. Naga people have the right to live in our homeland without being harassed and killed by the Indian Army without consequence,” it stated.
