The police in Nagaland have stumbled upon a mass grave, containing at least nine bodies in highly decomposed state, from Dimapur on Friday night.The bodies in a pile atop each other were placed under boulders with a polythene sheet covering them, police said on Saturday.
The bodies were spotted by some labourers in a ditch beside a road at Pachaspura, located over 10 kms from Nagaland’s commercial hub Dimapur. The labourers saw human limbs protruding from under the polythene sheet and intimated this to the police.
“The bodies bore clear bullet entry and exit wounds in the skull. The identities of the bodies were not known as yet. We have sent the bodies for autopsy. We will also publish the photos of the victims so that people can identify them,” Dimapur Superintendent of Police VZ Angami said.
“Preliminary investigation indicated that the victims were all blindfolded with their hands tied behind and shot in the heads. They were all males, believed to be aged 18 and above. The victims were believed to have been killed about a week back,” he said.
However, police in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district said that one of the bodies had been identified by a man from Bokajan town in the district and that he claimed it was that of his brother. Dimapur is around 20 km away from Bokajan.
“A man, who is a Karbi, identified one of the bodies as that of his brother’s. The man said his brother Harlongbi Engti went to Dimapur for shopping on December 28 and he had been missing since then,” Karbi Anglong Superintendent of Police Mugdhajyoti Mahanta said.
“However, officially we haven’t been intimated anything so far by Nagaland police,” Mahanta added. The incident is seen as the fallout of the recent clashes between Karbi militants and the Nagas residing in Assam’s Karbi Anglong district.
At least nine people — seven Nagas and two Karbi militants — were killed and over 50 houses torched in the clashes that took place around Chokihola area in the district on December 27 last year. In the wake of the clashes, hundreds of Nagas had fled to Dimapur where the fellow Nagas organised rallies in protest against the incidents.