DIMAPUR, JAN 16 (MExN): The NSCN-K today flatly rejected the claim of the NSCN-IM that the two slain Konyak youth who were killed in Kohima recently were not innocents. “Inconsistent IK’S versions of circumstances surrounding the killings of two innocent Konyaks at Kohima by their mercenaries invite factual feedbacks, so that criminals are held accountable and Naga society is assured immunity from similar acts of mindless barbarism in the future,” a release issued by the Commander, People’s Army, Kohima Unit, NSCN-K said.
“Is it believable to consider the entire Konyak tribe as liars but accept Brig. Phunthing Tangkhul and Keditsu Angami of IK account as true,” the commander questioned.
“Coining non-existent names and ranks in the People’s Army command at Kohima itself exposes IK’S desperate attempt to escape from their dastard act of sheer inhumanity perpetrated upon innocent Naga citizens.”
Saying that while a section of the NSCN-IM asserted that the two deceased were killed in a combat, the release said Keditsu Angami, CAO of the NSCN-IM, Angami Region, claimed that the two were apprehended near Taxi Stand Kohima.
“It is also beyond military ethics that victims would voluntarily admit involvement with the rivals when they are not all accused of such.”
The questions the commander raised were: “IK themselves asserted that no such incriminating documents were found at the time of apprehension except possession of Burmese torch light, is that enough a substance to summarily execute them? Why were different confusing identities of the victims given by different IK functionaries?”
The NSCN-K went on to say that the “state of commotion in the IK hierarchy in obvious anticipation of reaction against their cadres’ demonic atrocities has made them to issue such contradictory statements to which the Nagas have already judged.”
Maintaining that they do not even suggest the Konyaks or the Nagas of their course of protest, the NSCN-K said “we only hope that sanity would one day dawn on the Nagas so that at least our future would be salvaged from ongoing perils being orchestrated by inimical forces on the pretext of Naga Nationalism.”
“In the history of decades of People’s Army’s struggle, at no point of time had we disclaimed dead bodies of any of our fighters, when thousands of martyred fighters had honorably been accorded military condolence, why would we deny such honor if the two deceased were from our fold.”
The NSCN-K has advised the NSCN-IM “not to use NSCN’S people’s Army as scapegoat, for we are engaged in a battle to uphold and achieve Naga’s inherent right and not factional turf war like you presume, perpetrate and perpetuate.”
