Apart from insurgency related killings, most cases of murder in our society are driven by the need for financial sustenance through illegal means and property dispute. Dimapur is a case in point. There is an indication that the cold blooded murder of a businesswoman on December 14 in Dimapur was related to some property disputes. Investigation is in full swing and the Dimapur police might have gathered enough clues by now to ascertain the specific reason for the murder of Ritika Mehta, proprietor of Apna Hotel.Whatever may be the development, the incident has once again questioned the credibility of our administration. It is also another reminder of the dangers confronting the people in this commercial hub of Nagaland. Ritika Mehta was attacked last month by miscreants. Sadly, that signal was not strong enough to alert the administration to do something to prevent the December 14 incident. The incident also reminded us a case that had happened few months ago where one businessman by the name of Ashish Saha was shot dead at point blank by armed men at Shaam Bazaar in Signal Basti which is some 500 metres away from the Sub Urban police station. Meanwhile, we don’t have vivid reasons to explain on rising cases of cold blooded murder in the town. One thing is that, due to the ‘thickening source of violence’ in our society there seems to be an enormous appeal among the people to indulge in these unwanted activities. Prof Shiv Visvanathan of Jindal School of Government and Public Policy once said that people who live in the midst of violence or listen to the stories of such gory incidents have the tendency to commit violent acts. It is the spectator of violence who is truly blood thirsty as one tries to rectify history, he said. “Violence is not merely manufacture but it is a ritual of consumption. It is the spectator and the consumer who thicken the sources of violence,” he added. Given the nature of approach of the authority and the attitude of our society towards the whole affairs we still have capacity to digest violence. Meanwhile, so many question marks are hurled at the administration. What ails our administration? We do not think our case is so complex a problem that requires a complex solution. One thing our authority should keep in mind is—simply accepting the “as long as the human society exists we will have evil or disturbed people” is not going to take us anywhere. In fact, due to such mentality our administration is yet to come up with sensible violence control measures in spite of the rich resources at our disposal. You would say we do not lack answers to this problem. Two things we lack—courage and the will to do so.
