Talibanesque style of execution : The battered body says it all
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: September 25, 2021 -

Chief Minister N Biren Singh has apologised to the people for the glaring security lapses that led to the abduction and subsequent cold blooded murder of former president of Zeliangrong Baudi, Athuan Abonmai.

The apology came on September 24, two days after the battered, lifeless body of Abonmai was found hours after he was whisked away from outside the very venue where the Chief Minister addressed a meeting on September 22.

The apology of the Chief Minister came just one day after 14 cops including the OC of Tamenglong police station were placed under suspension and while this is something much better than indifference, the question still remains whether this is enough.

The BJP led Government here need to show that there is a Government in place and the first thing to do would be to unmask the people or the group to which they belong to in the first place.

As stated here in a commentary just one day earlier, the abduction from a high security zone and later clinical murder could not have been the handiwork of any rag-tag bunch of desperadoes and points to a well organised group which knew what it was doing.

And it does not need rocket science technology to deduce what is the well organised group whose writ runs large in a place like Tamenglong.

The Government should have the moral conviction to openly state which is the group responsible for the abduction and subsequent murder of Athuan Abonmai instead of beating around the bush with the oft repeated line, 'anybody involved' will be booked and legally dealt with.

This is where strong pressure ought to be applied on the Centre to get its act together to make everyone fall in line.

Dead men tell no tales, but surely the mortal remains do tell a number of stories and the more one studies the mortal remains of Athuan Abonmai the more the similarities with the mortal remains of the late Thingnam Kishan, Token and Rajen, who were abducted and later bludgeoned to death by NSCN (IM) cadres in 2009.

Fast forward to 2021 and here is a case of Athuan Abonmai abducted in broad daylight and the brutalised and lifeless body found later in the evening of September 22.

Just like the bodies of the three victims of 2009, there is not much to suggest that Athuan Abonmai was shot dead for the body bears all the tell tale signs of the murderers toeing the line, 'Save the bullets and use the spade and sledgehammer.'

The deep and wide gash, the bloodied face, the spade found at the sight of the crime, all point to the horrors that were inflicted on the late man and here is a tale of a Talibanesque style of execution being carried out with much finesse in a place where the writ of a group which believes in 'Nagalim for Christ' runs large and deep.

It is a tragedy, a tragedy scripted and directed to perfection by the killers who had no qualms in using spades and even chains in eliminating a human life.