New Delhi: The Supreme Court has issued a notice to the Union government in a plea moved by the Nagaland government over the denial of permission to prosecute 30 army personnel whose botched-up operation resulted in the killing of 13 civilians in December 2021.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice J.B. Pardiwala and Justice Manoj Misra recorded the Nagaland government’s statements and also issued notices to the Union home and defence ministries.
On December 4, 2021 evening, a contingent of the army’s counter-insurgency unit, 21 Para Special Forces, killed six civilians and injured two others – all residents of Oting village in the state’s Mon district bordering Myanmar – while they were returning home in a pick-up van after working at a coal mine. The security forces apparently ‘mistook’ them for militants. According to a statement issued by Dimapur-based 3 Corps of the army, the unit was on a counter-insurgency operation in the area following a tip-off on the likely movement of militants belonging to the NSCN (Khaplang).
Local police filed an FIR (first information report), following which the Nagaland government set up a five-member special investigation team (SIT), headed by ADGP (law and order) Sandeep Tamgade to probe the violence. The Union government, however, refused to grant sanction to prosecute the accused army personnel.
The apex court also, in July 2022, stayed the prosecution of the accused, after the wives of the army personnel involved moved the court underlining that the Nagaland Police were prosecuting their husbands without obtaining requisite sanction from the Union government.
The incident sparked widespread outrage, resulting in violent clashes in Mon district on December 5, 2021, resulting in two more deaths of civilians. On December 5, 2021 afternoon, a 1,000-strong angry group set on fire a portion of the Assam Rifles camp situated behind the superintendent of police’s office in Mon town, and also vandalised the Konyak Union office located nearby. Several civilians were injured in the firing by the security forces in that incident too.
