Mob killing case : Dimapur

On February 23,2015 an FIR was filed which stated that a college going Naga girl was raped and the name of the accused was Syed Sharif Khan who was arrested on the next day and had been sent in judicial custody.

But the social media and initial reports by local dailies suspected that Khan was a Bangladeshi. 

State DGP L.L. Doungel told the media after the lynching on Thursday that he was a suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrant. Then the Indian Express wrote that Khan was an army personnel and his driving licence has also been found by the police. 

The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) issued a statement to the local dailies  condemning the rape of another Naga girl by a person of Bangladeshi origin in Dimapur.   

On March 4, as newspapers reported the alleged rape,  students, from a girls’ college came out with a procession  and by 10 am, hundreds of college students had descended on the streets and marched to the deputy commissioner’s office. 

Deputy Commissioner Wezope Kenye and SP Meren Jamir tried to calm the crowd, but the protests continued till about 7 pm. At around 8 pm, some people damaged some shops belonging to alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. The DC and SP were later suspended. The crowd also attempted to set some shops into fire.

Mar Longkumer, a member of Survival Nagaland, a group that has been pressing the government to deport Bangladeshi immigrants stated that he was a witness to NSF leaders telling the protesters that a rally would be held the next day at which the people could put forward their views.

The next morning, the NSF peace rally saw a huge turnout. While some have blamed the NSF for mobilisation of the mob that raided Central Jail and lynched the accused, NSF president Tongpang Ozukum said that after the rally, the chairperson of the rally wanted everyone to go back to their homes as the curfew had been relaxed from 7 am to 11 am only, specifically for the peace rally. He reportedly also mentioned that this ugly incident could have been avoided if they had listened to the NSF plea.

Ozukum said that on March 4, after hearing that the protesters had gathered in the DC’s office and demanded that the culprit be handed over to them, the NSF officials went to Dimapur to pacify them and requested them to let the NSF take over the issue, but they refused to do so.

The Indian Express reported that suspended SP Meren Jamir had said that hundreds of girls in college and school uniform were in the front when the crowd had reached the jail and so they could not use force when there were hundreds of girls in front. Also a local journalist reported that the police did a lathi charge and then fired in the air, following which most of the students melted away.

Meanwhile, investigations have revealed that the social media posts on Muslims being attacked and mosques being ransacked originated from outside Nagaland. An administrator of a Dimapur-based Facebook group has reported of two persons located outside Nagaland who were spreading most of the rumours of Muslims being attacked in Nagaland. One of them also played a similar role during the Kokrajhar violence of 2012 when people from Northeast came under attack in Bangalore, Mumbai and other cities.

IGP Lotha stated in an interview that they are looking into all the aspects, especially where the social media posts originated from.

Eeshita Bhadra
Msc.Media || PG:1