13 CIVILIANS SHOT DEAD BY INDIAN ARMY IN STATE OF NAGALAND

Sun 05 December 2021:

Protesters set fire to army trucks after more than a dozen villagers in India’s Nagaland state were shot and killed by soldiers who misidentified them for “militants.”

According to local media, Indian security personnel opened fire on civilians late Saturday in India’s rural northeast area, which borders Myanmar.

“The situation in entire Mon district is very tense right now. We have 13 confirmed deaths which include one labourer from outside the Nagaland state,” said Nagaland police officer Sandeep M Tamgadge.

The incident took place in and around Oting village in Mon district during a counterinsurgency operation conducted by members of the Assam Rifles, a part of Indian security forces deployment in the state, a senior police official based in Nagaland said.

Firing began when a truck carrying 30 or more coal-mine labourers was passing the Assam Rifles camp area, officials told Reuters and The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

As villagers were killed in the firing, the locals turned into an angry mob and surrounded the security forces. The forces had to fire at the mob in ‘self defense’ and several villagers had received fire shots, said police sources.

Union home minister Amit Shah tweeted: “Anguished over an unfortunate incident in Nagaland’s Oting, Mon. I express my deepest condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives. A high-level SIT constituted by the State govt will thoroughly probe this incident to ensure justice to the bereaved families.

Indian Security Forces gunned down 13 civilians at Oting, in Mon district of #Nagaland -India#India pic.twitter.com/HD84Me103G

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) December 5, 2021

Government forces are battling dozens of ethnic armed groups in India’s remote northeast whose demands range from independent homelands to maximum autonomy within India.

Locals in Nagaland have frequently accused forces of wrongly targeting innocent residents in their counterinsurgency operations against rebel groups.

Indian Security Forces gunned down 13 civilians at Oting, in Mon district of #Nagaland -India#India pic.twitter.com/HD84Me103G

— INDEPENDENT PRESS (@IpIndependent) December 5, 2021

In it’s 2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in India, U.S state departments stated:

Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), the central government may designate a state or union territory as a “disturbed area,” authorizing security forces in the state to use deadly force to “maintain law and order” and to arrest any person “against whom reasonable suspicion exists” without informing the detainee of the grounds for arrest. The law also provides security forces immunity from civilian prosecution for acts committed in regions under the AFSPA. In 2016 the Supreme Court stated that every death caused by the armed forces in a disturbed area, whether of a civilian or a terrorist suspect, should be investigated.

The AFSPA remained in effect in Nagaland, parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, and Assam, and a version of the law was in effect in Jammu and Kashmir. The AFSPA was renewed through January 2021 in Nagaland, which had been under the AFSPA for nearly six decades. Human rights organizations asserted the law is in violation of Article 21 of the constitution and continued to call for its repeal, citing numerous alleged human rights violations.

There were allegations police failed to file required arrest reports for detained persons, resulting in hundreds of unresolved disappearances. Police and government officials denied these claims. The central government reported state government screening committees informed families about the status of detainees. There were reports, however, that prison guards sometimes required bribes from families to confirm the detention of their relatives.

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