• ACAUT to file PIL against FCI and Zeliang; vows to pursue all legal options
• Demands CBI enquiry into PDS scams by January 31 next year
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EM Images / S Henlly Phom[/caption]
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ACAUT advisor Khekiye K Sema refusing to leave the protest site. (EM Images / S Henlly Phom)[/caption]
Dimapur, Dec. 15: The enduring image of a peaceful ACAUT rally on Thursday that was disfigured into pandemonium by the state government’s application of brute force was that of a drenched, tear-gassed but defiant-looking Khekiye K Sema, and an unidentified elderly woman in a red cardigan down on her knees, refusing to leave or stand down even as everyone around them scattered to safety.
“Come and arrest me! What wrong have I done? Come and arrest me!” Sema bellowed from the steps of one of the buildings near the traffic booth at Khermahal police point even as ACAUT members gathered round the old woman in the red cardigan who – it was later confirmed – was taken to a hospital.
“I saw her (crouched on the steps). I thought that she was praying but later on I was told that she was hurt”, Sema told newsmen afterwards. After using water cannon and tear gas on the peaceful protesters, IRB personnel chased the retreating public towards DDSC stadium “to ensure that they do not come back” to resume the rally.
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Police personnel and the ACAUT members. (EM Images / S Henlly Phom)[/caption]
The protest rally, ACAUT had announced earlier, was to be held at NRL gas station right next to the Clock Tower. But the state government, unlike the snail-paced administrative decisions it is famous for, promptly decided to imposed section 144 CrPc – which prohibits assembly of five or more persons – within 100 metre radius of the Clock Tower at around 10.30 am to 11 am on Thursday.
According to the order, issued by the Commissioner of Police Dimapur, the restriction was in effect from 1 pm till 5 pm Thursday. But even after relocating from the Clock Tower area to Khermahal junction, the protestors were told by the police that they were not allowed to stage the rally there.
When the police in full riot gear attempted to prevent the rally, it was the women protestors who formed a human chain to stop the police from proceeding further. As if on cue, the rest of the protestors started singing
– the universal protest anthem.
What will come to define this protest are the fearless defiance of Khekiye Sema and the unidentified old woman in a red cardigan, and the group of women who did not budge an inch even as the police trained the water cannon on them. It was because the women withstood the water cannon that police first hurled the tear gas.
The first tear gas was thrown at exactly 1.50 pm, not more than 30 minutes into the public rally. The first tear gas did not go off, prompting the police to lob another right into the heart of the circle of protestors. As the crowd choked and dispersed, the defiant figures of Sema and the old woman in red cardigans stood spine-chillingly courageous in that mist of water and smoke.
During the rally, family members of Joel Nillo Kath and Hukiye Yepthomi – two of the arrested ACAUT members with Simon Kelio – also addressed the protestors. “My husband is a hero,” said Joel’s wife.
In the middle of the rally, the police also made two announcements declaring the rally illegal and asking the people to leave the place. A few of them women were said to have taken to the hospital for treatment after the police used tear gas.
Even as the crowd dispersed, ACAUT members addressed a press conference in which they declared that ‘this is just the beginning.’
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Khekiye K Sema said that Thursday’s incident was simply a manifestation of corruption as a total functioning norm of the state government. “We respect the office of the chief minister but we do not have an iota of respect for Mr TR Zeliang,” he said.
The government’s use of force to suppress the rally, according to Sema, were “the wishes of Tinku (one of the accused persons named in the ACAUT FIR) being carried out through the chief minister”. The chief minister has been directly monitoring the ACAUT activities since it first started the agitation at NRL gas station, Sema said.
“If Tinku Sharma and Nirmal Jain are arrested then Mr chief minister will also be hanged with them. All that has happened today is simply a clear expression of this,” he said.
ACAUT Nagaland has vowed to pursue all legal options available, beginning with a Public interest Litigation (PIL) against chief minister TR Zeliang, the Food Corporation of India and the state’s department of Food and Civil Supplies.
Sema told the press conference that they had planned to seek public endorsement for the same at today’s rally. “Now with or without the resolution, we will go ahead,” he said even as the ACAUT members gathered at the meeting gave their resounding assent.
ACAUT has also demanded that the state government “bring in the CBI inquiry before the 31st of January 2017 to investigate the entire PDS mismanagement systems under F&CS”.
Dr Khekugha Muru of ACAUT said that the state government’s decision to impose 144 CrPC was a clear indication of “failure of law and order” in Nagaland. “Therefore we demand President’s Rule in Nagaland.”
He also said that ACAUT did not fail on Thursday. “Today’s incident has emboldened us. Now we are more ready. And we thank the state government under TR Zeliang for this.”
In a statement issued later, ACAUT Nagaland stated: “The brutality and abuse of the powers by state government using its state machinery to crush the voice of the general public, voicing out against corruption is the strongest proof of corrupted government and further confirmation of chief minister trying to cover his corruption activities in the Food and Civil Supplies department in collusion with faceless conspirators operating within and from outside the state of Nagaland.”
According to Dimapur police, the three arrested members of ACAUT had applied for bail on Thursday. The PRO of Dimapur police told reporters on Thursday that the court was scheduled to hear on their bail plea on Friday.
He also said that the “government directive” on Thursday was “very clear”: that the rally should be ‘strictly prohibited’ because of the ‘festive season’. The police, he said, had to abide by the directives of the state government.
According to him, the ACAUT rally on Thursday was illegal since the government had prohibited it. By not resorting to baton charge, he said, the police had actually “peacefully dispersed” the protestors. He also said that the decision to use water cannons and tear gas on the protestors was “taken collectively”.
Voicing concern over the recent alleged multi-crore PDS scam involving the F&CS department and in support of the initiative of ACAUT against it, the ANPSA Zunheboto took out a silent protest march in Zunheboto on Thursday.
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The ANPSA said the government of the day chose to suppress the people’s movement with an iron hand by arresting the ACAUT activists and said this is seriously viewed as a bad precedence before the student community.
It also called upon the citizens to speak the truth as indifference tantamount to complicity.
