EMN
Dimapur, January 20
Gunmen continue to spread terror in the lives of people in the state thanks to a nonexistent government of Nagaland. Even while the simmering rage following the recent killing of a businesswoman in Dimapur has yet to ebb, a community organization has protested what it stated were four unidentified gunmen intruding into the private residence of a citizen in Padum Pukhri, in Dimapur recently.
An Ao Naga community organization Ao Senso Telongjem of Padumpukhuri in Dimapur issued a statement on Wednesday, January 20, demanding that the state law enforcement agencies investigate and bring the gunmen to justice.
According to the organization, the gunmen are said to have intruded into the residence of one Sungti Amer on during the evening of January 18. The antisocial elements are said to have manhandled a helper and then threatened that they would return.
‘The Ao Senso Telongjem Padumpukhuri village Dimapur vehemently condemn the dastardly coward act of four unidentified masked gunman who entered private residential building of Sungti Amer, house no. 706, Padumpukhuri village,’ the press release said.
“One of our respected member & bonafide citizen of Padumpukhuri village at around 7:10pm. on the 18th of Jan. 2016 by jumping over the fence & manhandling the helper & with malicious intent through threatening to return in the future. Fortunately, owing to the benevolent grace of our Almighty God the owner as well as his family members were not present on that fateful day,” the organization stated.
“Such shameful act of cowardice and criminal intent be outrightly (sic) condemned by all right thinking citizens. Whereupon, the concern authority is requested to investigate the matter and brought to justice and award the culprits befitting punishment at the earliest time,’ the Ao community group stated in demand.
The incident comes in the wake of continued assault on the lives, properties and wellbeing of common citizens thanks to an indifferent government that has yet to issue even official statements on the wave of crimes especially in the district of the state, Dimapur, hit hardest by gun violence, rampant extortion, and almost perennial threats.
Citizens’ Factfile: What is a Failed State and what are its characteristics?
A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government are no longer functioning properly causing the society to lose standards of living and weaken nationally introducing the possibility of governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:
• Loss of control or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force
• Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions
• Inability to provide public services
• Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community
Common characteristics of a failing state include a central government so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory and there is a non-provision of public services. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, and sharp economic decline can occur.
Typically, the term means that the state has been rendered ineffective and is not able to enforce its laws uniformly or provide basic goods and services to its citizens because of (variously) high crime rates, extreme political corruption, an impenetrable and ineffective bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, and cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield more power than the state over a certain area.
Other factors of perception may be involved. A derived concept of “failed cities” has also been launched, based on the notion that while a state may function in general, polities at the sub-state level may collapse in terms of infrastructure, economy and social policy. Certain areas or cities may even fall outside state control, becoming a de facto ungoverned part of the state.
