There is anger and resentment in Nagaland’s Oting after the Supreme Court on September 17 quashed criminal proceedings against 30 Indian Army personnel accused of killing 13 residents of the village in a mistaken ambush and subsequent violence.
On the evening of December 4, 2021, the Army’s 21 Para Special Force opened fire at a van carrying coal miners from Tiru to Oting village in Mon district, killing six on board. The army had apparently mistaken the group of workers for insurgents. A crowd of protestors then set fire to army vehicles. Seven more civilians were killed when the soldiers opened fire again.
Chemwang Konyak, whose 32-year-old son was among those killed, told Scroll over the phone from Oting village that there is unhappiness over the Supreme Court verdict. “We are deeply aggrieved and disheartened by the Supreme Court order. Appropriate justice should be given to the victims,” said Konyak. “We are all human beings. Everyone’s life is precious. They should not have killed innocent villagers.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling is on technical grounds and it has said that the case against the Army personnel can proceed if the Centre gives its sanction. The Ministry of Home Affairs had in April 2023 refused to give sanction to the criminal proceedings initiated by the Nagaland Police based on the findings of a Special Investigation Team.
The stringent Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, requires the Centre’s sanction to prosecute army personnel for actions discharged while on duty in “disturbed areas”. It gives the army sweeping powers to search, arrest, and open fire if they deem it necessary for “the maintenance of public order”.
The law has been in force in Naga-inhabited areas of Assam and Manipur since 1958 and was later expanded to most parts of the North East in 1972 after the reorganisation of states in the region. Since 1995, all of Nagaland has been a “disturbed area” under the law. In April 2023, three of 57 police stations in Nagaland were dropped from under the purview of the law.
In a separate writ petition, the Nagaland government had challenged the Centre’s refusal to grant sanction. The matter is pending before the Supreme Court. “[The] state has already registered our protest and the Court will take it up,” Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said on Friday.
But residents of Oting are angry and disillusioned, with many pointing out the silence of community leaders amid claims that the Centre appeased the local powerful elite by nominating an Oting resident to Rajya Sabha. The Nagaland government, too, has drawn criticism given that it is ruling the state in coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Rio’s Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party is heading the Nagaland government in coalition with the BJP. The deputy chief minister of the state is from the BJP, which heads the central government. Days after the killings, Home Minister Amit Shah had said that a high-level Special Investigation Team would ensure “justice to the bereaved families”.
Silence of local leadership
Chemwang Konyak said that apart from Rio’s comment, the Nagaland government has not said anything about the Supreme Court ruling and neither has the Konyak Union. The Konyak Union is the apex body of the Konyak tribe. All 13 of those killed are from the Konyak tribe. “We will issue a statement only after our executive meeting and due consultations,” Tingthoak Konyak, who heads the Konyak Union, told Scroll.
Key Naga groups such as Naga Hoho, Naga Students Federation, Global Naga Forum, among others expressed their anguish and objections to the ruling. The Oting Students Union, in a statement on September 19, appealed to civil society groups and the public to support them in seeking justice. “Together, we must continue to fight for accountability and for the dignity of those who were so brutally taken from us,” it said.
But organisations from Eastern Nagaland have remained silent so far. Till date, the Konyak Union and Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organisation have not said anything even though villagers are angry and hurt, another resident of Oting, who did not want to be identified, told Scroll. Oting residents said it feels like a “betrayal” that their own people are not speaking out against the killings.
Several villagers from Oting told Scroll that the Konyak Union and Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organisation should take the lead in seeking justice since the families and relatives of the victims lack the resources and legal support to pursue the matter in the court. “We don’t know the procedure, whom to approach, what to do [and] how to do it,” said the Oting resident.
A Rajya Sabha seat
A lot of anger has been directed at the BJP’s Rajya Sabha member S Phangnon Konyak. In March 2022, only three months after the killings, the BJP nominated S Phangnon Konyak, an Oting resident and a member of the BJP women’s wing, to Rajya Sabha – she was elected unopposed as Nagaland’s first woman Rajya Sabha member.
For residents, however, the politics behind S Phangnon Konyak’s nomination was clear: the Rajya Sabha seat in Eastern Nagaland, which is a backward region, and the nomination of a Konyak parliamentarian, was seen as an attempt to tamp down on the protests against the killings. “That’s what everyone thinks…but nobody has the guts to speak,” a resident who did not want to be identified told Scroll.
A day after the Supreme Court ruling, some criticised the Rajya Sabha member’s silence. “The RS MP seat for Eastern Nagas, born out of Oting tragedy, will be remembered as a stark reminder of this injustice,” Swu wrote on X. “The silence about this issue reveals the true allegiance of those in power.”
“The Rajya Sabha MP who happened to be from our village has not also said anything,” said Chemwang Konyak. “She is silent.”
The Oting resident, who did not want to be identified, said that other members of Konyak tribe have been left disillusioned after they accepted S Phangnon Konyak’s nomination. She has also not done anything for the victims so far, said the resident.
A Nagaland journalist, however, pointed out that the silence of Konyak civil society was “obvious”. “The political class reaped the benefit of the Centre’s placatory advances post-Oting killings,” said the journalist. The relatives had no choice but to accept their fate and that if the ruling class of the community – in this case, the village – tells them to stay quiet, they will have to, said the journalist. “That’s how village justice works,” they said. “The space called freedom of speech or freedom to disagree gets narrower as it goes down the democratic hierarchy.”
For the families and relatives of the victims and survivors, the anguish continues. Chemwang Konyak said it is not only about those killed that day but also the survivors who continue to suffer. “Two of them are half dead, [they] can’t wake up from bed,” he said. “They are being spoon fed but we are also helpless. What can we do?”
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