Adhir Ranjan Chowdhary, leader of the Congress legislative party in the Lok Sabha, said on Thursday that Union Home Minister Amit Shah came out with a misleading statement in the Lok Sabha on Monday saying the victims of the firing in Mon district of Nagaland on December 4 had been shot after they continued to flee after being asked to stop by the armed forces.
Raising the issue at the start of the zero hour, Mr. Chowdhary stated that there were now statements by survivors of the incident that they had been directly shot.
Also read: Nagaland killings: Naga People’s Front MP says Amit Shah erred on facts
Mr. Chowdhary noted that Congress president Sonia Gandhi had constituted a delegation comprising Lok Sabha members Gaurav Gogoi and Anto Antony to visit Mon village in Nagaland and share the grief of the locals whose family members were killed in the firing. “But they are not being allowed to enter the State. Even after the Lakhimpur Kheri incident, our party leaders were prevented from providing sympathy to the families of the victims,” he observed.
Responding to Mr. Chowdhary, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal said the issue raised by him pertained to the State government and not the Lok Sabha.
On Monday, the Home Minister expressed regret over the death of 14 civilians in three consecutive episodes of firing by security forces, the first of which was a case of mistaken identity. Narrating the sequence of events, Mr. Shah told the House that the Army had received information on movement of insurgents in Mon and ’21 Para Commando’ unit had laid an ambush.
