Military detained, tortured villagers — NPMHR

Dimapur, Nov. 28 (EMN): The Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights has alleged excess by military personnel against villagers of Longkhojan village in Longding district of Arunachal Pradesh on November 18. The NPMHR issued a press release on Wednesday decrying the Indian military for perpetrating atrocities on civilians. “The Indian army personnel has once again gone berserk at Longkhojan village under Longding District of Arunachal Pradesh on the 18th of November 2018, where 23 persons (men, women, church and village leaders and elders) were physically and mentally tortured and detained whole night in the open ground without food, water or warm clothes,” the organisation stated. ‘The army released them the next day after they forced the village chief and gaon boras (GBs) to sign on blank papers at gunpoint under the sanction of the Armed Forces Special powers Act (AFSPA), 1958 —a repetition of the modus operandi used on innocent and simple villagers for the last 70 years of army atrocities on the Naga people everywhere.’ The NPMHR stated to have ‘ascertained’ that the administrative head of the area, the extra additional commissioner of Kanubari, had written to the deputy commissioner of Longding to take stock of the matter. Likewise, the affected people are said to register an FIR against the Indian army, while also the member of Parliament in the Lok Sabha from Arunchal Pradesh Ninong Ering also wrote to the prime minister demanding intervention against the army personnel. According to the NPMHR, the MP was stated to have ‘specifically mentioned’ that “Even though the Govt. of India and the NSCN (IM)/K and other organisations are under cease-fire, but they (Indian army) are active in the three districts of Arunachal Pradesh that are Tirap, Changlang and Longding respectively.” The NPMHR has expressed solidarity with the Nagas of Arunachal Pradesh, ‘who are now faced with suppression and strangulation of their rights and articulations without any democratic space under extreme militarization.’ Likewise, the organisation expressed solidarity with human rights activists Agnes Kharshiing and her colleague Amita Sangma, who allegedly were brutally assaulted on November 8, at Tuber Sohshrieh in East Jaintia Hills District of Meghalaya ‘in their mission against illegal coal mining.’ Further, the organisation said to continue extending “our solidarity with all democratic struggles and human rights movements” in India.