DIBURGARH
\n\u201cSorry, sister, we cannot help you. Cannot speak,\u201d said one of the relatives of the two survivors who were attacked by the 21 Para Military forces of the Indian Army in Nagaland on December 4.
\nYeishang and Sheiwang, the only two survivors of the brutal shooting, are currently admitted at the Assam Medical College Hospital (AMCH) in Assam\u2019s Dibrugarh district.
\nWithin a few hours of the only interview of Sheiwang and Yeishang being published, all media conversations with the two survivors and their family members present at the hospital have been barred. No journalist is being allowed to speak to them and no one is allowed to meet the injured men, apart from the medical staff.
\nSheiwang and Yeishang have not only survived the shooting but also witnessed the entire incident and seen what happened to the rest of the men who were killed.
\nBoth men, in their statements to the media, had contradicted what Union home minister Amit Shah said in his statement two days ago.
\n\u201cStrict instruction from Nagaland. The patients should not be disturbed anymore,\u201d said a person who was also present at the hospital and who wants to remain anonymous.
\nThe superintendent of AMCH said while the hospital had no problem with the media being present, they had received orders from \u201cNagaland authorities\u201d that the patients should not speak to journalists.
\nWhile recording a statement or interviewing two severely injured men might be barred for various reasons, the family members who were outspoken against the army forces until yesterday, are also being barred from giving media comments anymore.
\nBefore the family stopped speaking to the media, they received a visit from the superintendent of police, Mon district.
\nOn Tuesday, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah stated in parliament that the Indian government regretted the deaths.
\nHe continued that the armed forces had information about insurgents from NSCN (Khaplang) travelling through the same route in Oting village, Mon district. But Shah also said that the vehicle was signaled to stop but tried to flee.
\nThe shooting, according to Shah\u2019s statement, started only after the vehicle did not stop. The car was carrying eight coal miners in Nagaland\u2019s Mon district who were coming back from work in the evening.
\nDue to \u2018mistaken identity\u2019, according to the armed forces as well as the home minister, the 21 Para Military forces shot at and killed six out of eight coal miners. In further violent aftermath, the villagers of Oting violently protested against the armed forces \u2013 leading to the death of seven villagers and one army jawan.
\nWhile the home minister mentioned that the vehicle carrying the coal miners tried to flee, the survivors in their statement have vehemently denied it and said that they were right there, and there was no such signal before the shooting started.
\nWhile the killings in Mon are only another reminder for the frontier states of Northeast India of the draconian Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), the current situation of the survivors or families not being allowed to speak to the media has further proven that varied narratives apart from the one provided by the authorities will be controlled and unwelcome.
\nKaustabh Deka, an assistant professor in Dibrugarh University, who like many others came across posts on social media about the survivors being brought to Dibrugarh, met the families of the injured victims immediately after they were admitted to AMCH. Deka, while speaking to The Wire, said, \u201cI came across them being admitted to AMCH through social media. We have to focus on a few aspects of this incident. Firstly, this is not the first time such an incident has happened and it\u2019s time we saw AFSPA in terms of a larger picture. And secondly, the narrative of the survivors is the most important. Many narratives might come up now, but the ones from the survivors are the utmost priority. The judiciary has to step in and a free and impartial inquiry is the need of the hour.\u201d
\nAnd while the hospital authorities at AMCH have stated that the families of the injured men were probably informed by the Nagaland authorities of their whereabouts, there was another narrative until now about how the hospital staff posted pictures of the injured men on social media to get in touch with the villagers of Oting. It was believed that it was pictures on social media that helped the families find out about their relatives. The hospital authorities, however, refrained from providing any comment on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DIBURGARH \u201cSorry, sister, we cannot help you. Cannot speak,\u201d said one of the relatives of the two survivors who were attacked by the 21 Para Military forces of the Indian Army in Nagaland on December 4. Yeishang and Sheiwang, the only two survivors of the brutal shooting, are currently admitted at the Assam Medical College […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-232010","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n