Four more bodies identified in Nagaland; Gogoi wants CBI probe

Karbi Anglong deputy commissioner P K Buragohain said the four bodies were identified to be of persons from different villages of the Upper Deopani area under Bokajan police station. “They were all construction labourers working near Kohima and had gone missing on December 28 after they had left Kohima for Bokajan,” Buragohain said.

Earlier, one of the nine bodies was Saturday identified as that of Harlangbi Ingti (23), taking the number of identified bodies to five. All of them belong to the Karbi community and are suspected to have been abducted and killed by miscreants in Nagaland in retaliation to the killing of nine Rengma Nagas in Karbi Anglong last week by militants belonging to the Karbi People’s Liberation Tigers (KPLT).

Meanwhile, night curfew has been extended for an indefinite period in the police station areas of Bokajan, Chokihola and Borpathar, with authorities apprehending trouble in the wake of the killing of Karbi persons in Nagaland. Four or five persons were picked up by the police late Saturday evening for their alleged involvement in arson and violence and are being interrogated, Buragohain said.

Karbi Anglong district has been witnessing violence in the Chokihola and Borpathar police station areas for the past one week or more after heavily armed militants belonging to the KPLT had raided two Rengma villages and gunned down nine persons on December 27. Several villages have been also set afire, with over 2,000 Rengma Nagas fleeing to safety.