Nagaland killings: Report submitted in parliament ‘false and fabricated’, say Oting villagers

Dimapur, Dec. 8 (EMN): Breaking their silence four days after the para commandos killed 13 of their youths, the people of Oting village on Wednesday rubbished the statement made in the Parliament about the alleged circumstances that led to the botched ambush, terming it as “totally false and fabricated”.

Giving an account of what actually happened on the fateful evening of December 4 at Longkhao/Yatong of Oting Village, the office of the Oting Citizen through a communiqué said the statement made in the Parliament was unwarranted and appealed to all leaders not to misled and misconstrue the factual incident from ground zero.

Narrating the incident, the citizens of Oting village said that at around 3.30 pm on December 4, eight coal miners were returning home from a mining site as the following day was Sunday.

“Around 4:30 pm, the security forces ambushed that very pick-up truck without ascertaining anything about the loaded passengers, to which we thought they had a shootout with the insurgents. Then they blocked the road for all vehicular and all other movement in that direction from all sides, and diverted all vehicles to take the less frequented old Pioneer road,” read the statement.

It said the villagers, who were anxiously waiting for the pick-up truck to return, informed the district administration at around 7 pm on learning about a shootout incident.

Could not wait any longer, the villagers went searching for the pick-up truck at around 8 pm and found the vehicle in which the daily wage earners were travelling empty “with the bullet mark pierced in the windshield exactly at the driver’s position, blood stains covered with dust and mud, and the boys missing from the vehicle,” it stated.

“The pierced windshield in the front by bullets clearly indicates that they first shot the driver of the pick-up truck to halt and ambushed the remaining point blank,” it said, adding that it triggered suspicion.

The villagers then chased and intercepted the fleeing three vehicles of Indian armed forces, who initially denied any knowledge of the missing boys but six of the eight miners were

found half dressed and dead covered by a tarpaulin in the third vehicle during a search.

“The security forces attempted trying to brand the boys as militants by planting weapons and dressed them with camouflage uniforms and boots,” it stated.

The villagers said that they had no information about the whereabouts of the other two boys who weren’t in the vehicle. Heated argument between the security forces and the villagers turned into physical scuffles before the security forces started “firing indiscriminately and abruptly killing and injuring few others more in the spot”, they added.

They went on to say that the security personnel continued to fire while fleeing on the villagers’ motorcycles and killed more people.

Condemning the barbaric act, the people Oting stated that ‘all groups and parties of various factions and the Indian armed forces will be indefinitely barred from entering Oting jurisdiction (including Lower Tiru). It went on to warn that the village won’t be held responsible if anything happens for violating the directive.

“We may be small and tiny in area and population, yet we are ready to compromise with situations to lose our heads and take enemy’s heads. For we are warriors by blood and origin, and no forces can intimidate us,” read the statement.

Besides the 13 youths killed on December 4, one more civilian was killed in security forces’ firing on the following day after protest turned violent.