New twist to Assam border shooting incident of Apr 30

Staff Reporter DIMAPUR, MAY 1 IN a whole new twist to the April 30 killing of one Naga man by Assam police at the outskirts of Indisen village, fresh reports have emerged on Thursday suggesting that the victim, along with his three accomplices, were out hunting inside the forest – rather than to clear jungle as claimed earlier. The sensitivity of the issue, however, appears to have forced Dimapur police to enforce the code of omerta among its ranks. Because, if proven true, this piece of ‘late’ information has the potential to engineer a volte face to the narrative that the Assam police had fired upon Naga villagers engaged at clearing jungle. Police sources, on strict conditions of anonymity, told Eastern Mirror that on Wednesday evening, Dimapur police had combed the forest area where the dead body was found and recovered a 12 bore gun, reportedly belonging to one of the four Nagas involved in the incident. Besides the gun they also found a killed deer, said to be pregnant, from the site. These discoveries have paved way to suspicions that there could be more to the story. The absence of this particular aspect of the incident in the statement given by those who managed to escape from the clutches of Assam police only gives raise to more pertinent questions. So is the fact that this reported discovery of a gun and a killed deer, had failed to find a mention in the Dimapur police statement which was released to the press on Wednesday evening. Home Minister G Kaito Aye had called for a high level meeting today to discuss the issue. It remains unclear as to whether this version of the story was entertained at the meeting or not. Our Kohima Correspondent reported that the Home Minister is to apprise the Chief Minister of the situation tomorrow. The report quoted the Home Minister’s office as saying that this decision was made at a meeting was attended by the Nagaland Commissioner, IG of Border Affairs, and Secretary of Border Affairs.