Nagaland government ordered a judicial probe into Dimapur incident, suspends DC and SP

Kohima, Mar 6 2015 (NEPS):

The administration and law enforcement agencies of Dimapur district have come under severe public scrutiny following an unruly mob of around 4000 storming the Dimapur Central jail and pulling an alleged rapist out of it and lynching him afterwards.

Syed Farid Khan, suspected to be illegal Bangladeshi, was accused of raping a 20-year-old Naga woman, a college student, on February 23 and 24. Police arrested the rapist on February 25 and sent him to judicial custody. And the anger of the people specially the students and youth soared and protested on March 4 in front of Dimapur DC’s office. Later the students numbering over a thousand went towards main bazaar and vandalized about 20 shops.

On March 5, an unruly mob of around 4000 proceeded towards Dimapur Central Jail located some 7 kilometers away from Dimapur and broke open the two gates and pulled the rapist out of the jail. He was thrashed and pulled him naked towards Dimapur’s landmark City Tower. He died before reaching City Tower due to thrashings. “We tried our best to rescue him but could not as the crowd outnumbered us,” a police official following the unruly mob told the NEPS over phone.

Meanwhile, the Nagaland government on Friday ordered a judicial probe into Thursday's incident where a mob broke into the high-security central jail here and lynched a rape accused. It also suspended the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Dimapur district for their failure to tackle the situation.

Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Zeliang, who chaired a cabinet meeting Friday, said the incident that took place yesterday at Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland, was highly condemnable incident. “The cabinet decided to suspend the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Dimapur district immediately for their failure to tackle the situation," he said.

Zeliang asserted that the DC and the SP should have taken pre-emptive measures to contain the situation. “But they have failed," he said adding that fresh orders had been issued to all the DCs and SPs in the state to “protect the non-locals, particularly people belonging to minority communities.”

The Chief Minister also stated that the police were doing their best to identify the culprits and arrest them.

In the meantime, the BJP Unit of Nagaland has criticized on the “total breakdown of law and order” in Dimapur over the rape incident. Viewing seriously on the complacent attitude of the State Government and complete failure of the District administration and Police in dealing with the situation was seriously viewed, the Nagaland BJP Unit, while condemning the rape incident and also understanding the anger of the public, termed as “unfortunate” the protestors’ taking the law in their own hands.

Expressing its serious concern over the massive infiltration of Illegal Bangladeshis to the Northeast and in particular to Nagaland, it appealed to the Government of India and State Government to formulate suitable law to “eradicate the illegal Bangladeshis before things goes beyond control.”

It also appealed to all sections of people to maintain peace and harmony and at the same time appealed against spreading of rumors in order to avoid repercussions which would be much more damaging.