[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the recent months the world has been hearing of and seeing the horror of the fundamentalist terror outfit the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). But in this part of the world, the northeastern corner of India, acts no less that strike the heart of terror into the lives of ordinary people have been at play.
It is only now that these acts are now beaming directly into our homes and workspace with the boom of television and the internet.
Recently several gruesome acts carried out by militant organizations have been regularly hitting the headlines. In Nagaland how can anyone forget the ‘execution’ of nine Karbi men whose decomposed bodies were unearthed in January earlier this year from Pachaspura, several kilometers away from Chumukedima, a sub-urban area of Dimapur the state’s commercial capital? The incident was reportedly carried out with the tacit support of NSCN (IM) cadres.In May 2014, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) killed 32 Muslims in a series of attacks in the Kokrajhar and Baksa districts of Assam. A couple of later in August 2014, this same outfit dragged a sixteen year old, beat her and shot her dead at point blank range in front of her parents. She was according to them a police informer.
This incident was preceeded in June 2014, by the chilling incident of a 35 year old tribal Garo woman who was killed and her head blown off when she resisted an alleged molestation and rape attempt in the South Garo hills district of Meghalaya by suspected Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) militants, a banned militant outfit in Meghalaya.
Even before the blood spilled on these incidents have run dry, comes news today ,of merciless and brutal thrashing of villagers in the Garo Hills yet again by suspected militants of the same GNLA carried out on September 4th 2014, according to the Meghalaya police.The scenes were captured on a mobile phone recovered in the place during a raid by the police on the outfit on the run.
Can anybody make sense of this degree of violence ? Are these incidents by those who perpetuate and abet these acts going to become the ‘run of the news’ for the upcoming generation? Are these the leaders who will mentor tomorrow’s children?
Its time we take time to answer these questions before we find ourselves wrapped in the grip of bondage from where we may not break free. If the majority of us cannot find an answer to the ‘smoking guns’ around us and much less make sense of it all … how can we complain that others outside the region don’t understand us?
