Arunachal Pradesh: Army personnel 'mistakenly' shoot at two civilians in Tirap

Itanagar/Dibrugarh/Kohima: Two civilians were “mistakenly” shot at by the Army in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, Army sources said on Saturday. The incident happened at Chasa village on Friday evening when two villagers, identified as Nokphya Wangdan (28) and Ramwang Wangsu (23), were returning home after fishing in a river, local sources said. Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) condemned the incident and sought strict punishment for the guilty besides complete removal of the Armed Forces (Special Powers Act), 1958 or AFSPA from all Naga-inhabited areas in the Northeast. The firing incident comes months after 14 people were shot dead by the Army in a botched anti-militancy operation in neighbouring Nagaland’s Mon district, around 150 km from Tirap. The previous incident, which happened on December 4-5, had triggered widespread protests, demanding the withdrawal of AFSPA. The two wounded villagers were sent to the Assam Medical College and Hospital (AMCH) in Dibrugarh by the Army for treatment, the sources said. “There was credible information about the movement of armed rebels and an ambush was laid by the special forces,” an Army source said. It was a case of mistaken identity, the source said. AMCH superintendent Dr Prasanta Dihingia said one of the injured was hit by a bullet in the ulna of his hand, while the other’s bullet injury was on the toe. Both are currently out of danger, he said. A villager, who accompanied the injured persons to the hospital, told reporters, “Both of them are orphans. Now, one’s hand is injured and another’s leg is wounded. The government will have to do something for them.” The BJP president of Tirap district, Kamrang Tesia, said that instead of ensuring the security of the locals, the “senseless act” of the security forces without proper intelligence was leading to the loss of their credibility. On 21 March, two suspected insurgents of NSCN-IM were killed and one person injured in an anti-militancy operation near Old Kolagaon village, around 30 km from Khonsa – the district headquarters of Tirap. A day later, the NSCN said that of the two people killed, one was its office-bearer, while the other was a civilian. While AFSPA was withdrawn from certain parts of Nagaland, Assam and Manipur on Thursday, the Centre on Friday extended the law in three districts of Arunachal Pradesh, including Tirap, for another six months till 30 September. The AFSPA empowers security forces with powers to arrest without warrants, search premises, and fire after warning. NSF, the apex Naga students’ body in Nagaland, Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh, said in a statement that it “outrightly rejected the Centre’s ploy to please certain sections of Northeast” by removing AFSPA from some pockets, while keeping it imposed in a majority of Naga-inhabited areas in the region. “Two Naga youths Nokphua Wangpan and Ramwang Wangsu were critically injured when 12 Para Special Forces fired upon without any warning while they were returning from the river after fishing. “Such acts of the armed forces trampling upon the dignity, existence, freedom and happiness of the Naga people without any remorse under the protection of AFSPA cannot be accepted by the Federation in particular and the Naga people in general,” it said. NSF demanded that justice be delivered to the innocent civilians at the earliest and befitting punishment to the “trigger-happy” jawans. The federation said it would undertake a series of democratic agitations to press for their demands but did not announce a date for launching the stir. The Centre had on Thursday announced a reduction in the number of “disturbed areas” under the purview of the contentious law in Nagaland, Assam and Manipur with effect from 1 April. “There is no denying that areas falling under 15 police stations in seven districts of Nagaland will benefit from the Centre’s policy but a major chunk of the Naga homeland spread across Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland remain classified as ‘disturbed areas’,” it said. It questioned the yardstick used to lift the Act from certain areas of the Northeast as “police stations within the Naga homeland, which have almost perfect law and order records, have been completely left out”. “This step is more like rubbing salt on the wounds of Naga people who are still reeling under the shock of the Oting incident wherein 14 innocent Naga souls were gunned down by armed forces in a botched military operation in December last year,” it added. Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.