Sixty six-year-old Awan Konyak last saw her 25-year-old twin sons, Langwang and Thapwang, on November 29. It was a Monday and the young men...
Sixty six-year-old Awan Konyak last saw her 25-year-old twin sons, Langwang and Thapwang, on November 29. It was a Monday and the young men were heading back to work in a coal mine about 6 km from their village Oting in Nagaland’s Mon district.
They usually spent the week at the mine before returning home every Saturday in time for Sunday church service. That Sunday had been even more festive: along with the rest of the village, they had attended the wedding of 38-year-old W Hokup.
A week later, on Saturday evening, December 4, as the twins were returning home from the coal mine, the vehicle they were travelling in came under fire from personnel of the Indian Army. Of the eight passengers in the mini-truck, six died, including the twins. The army said it had mistaken the civilians for insurgents.
“The Army should have known they were normal civilians,” Awan Konyak said. “How can they kill my innocent sons?”
She was fighting back tears. “They were the best,” she said. “They were working hard to feed us. Now both are gone, what will we do?
In a statement on Sunday, the army said its personnel had launched the security operation based on “credible intelligence of likely...
