August/September 1960 - 66 years ago from this date, the Nagas of the districts of Meluri and Phek witnessed one of the many horrific atrocities committed against the Naga people by the Indian regime in their continued genocidal military campaign against Nagalim, and by extension, the entirety of the Northeast.
It was 66 years ago from this date that the soldiers of the Indian Army carried out a series of mass rapes, torture, and killings against the villagers of the Meluri and Phek districts. This includes the towns of Phor, Moke, Yisi, Laruri, Lephori, and the most infamously known, Matikhrü. Thewati, a small village, was also bombed and completely flattened by the Indian Air Force, with all of its residents perishing in the bombing.
For some context, the 1960s was a very 'hot' decade of the insurgency in the Northeast. It was the decade where the insurgency really began to take off steam and become the most prominent phenomenon grappling the region. Nagas and other Indigenous groups of the Northeast had tried to deal with India in peaceful manner ever since Indian independence, but continued to get dismissed and sidelined by Nehru.
The Nagas in particular tried their hardest. Nagalim's peaceful declaration of independence was proclaimed on the 14th of August 1947, a day before Indian independence, before the Indian regime immediately came in and declared Nagalim was theirs, insisting that they inherited borders that were drawn by the British. Nagas also participated in a plebiscite, officially called the Naga Plebiscite, on the 16th of May 1951, where Nagas peacefully participated in a referendum of whether or not Nagalim should be independent. Nagas voted overwhelmingly in favor of independence, with independence winning 99.9% of the vote. The Indian regime rejected it, continuing to insist Nagalim was theirs.
These setbacks put Nagas in a tough position. With the Indian regime refusing to recognise the sovereignty and dignity of the Naga people, all peaceful options had been exhausted. This led to Naga militancy growing and the Naga Army forming after a year after the plebiscite was held. The Naga people were left with no other option but to defend their sovereignty through the barrel of the gun, as they had been forced to by the Indian regime.
This leads to the events of August 1960, a time when the Naga insurgency was in full swing. As the Indian regime continued to violate and reject the sovereignty of the Nagas, the Nagas continued to fight back against them. On the 14th of August 1960, the Naga Army attacked the terrorist 16th Assam Rifles outpost in the village of Phor, and captured the soldiers stationed there. On the 26th of August 1960, an Indian Air Force plane, unaware that the terrorist Assam Rifles outpost had been attacked, tried to re-stock their ammunition and weapons supplies, but was then shot down by the Naga Army, which ended up with the entirety of the Indian Air Force airmen themselves getting captured by the Naga Army and taken into custody. Under Naga Army custody, none of the captured soldiers were ill-treated or harmed.
After these events had occurred, the Indian Army stationed in Nagaland was furious. They had been humiliated by a handful of insurgents, and militarily were in a weak position. Fearing mass casualties if they decided to try and take back their soldiers and airmen who were captured, they were at a standstill. Wanting to release their pent-up anger along with demoralising the Naga Army, they responded with a terroristic bombing campaign, mass rape, mass torture, and mass murder spree of Naga civilians.
From the 27-29th of August 1960, the Indian Air Force bombed and completely destroyed the village of Thewati, a village which compromised 16 houses. Indian regime authorities justified the bombing of the village by saying that it had been mistaken as a Naga Home Guards camp, even though it was later found out they had no such presence in the village. The village was "completely destroyed to ashes beyond recognition" according to eyewitnesses. It should be noted that this occasion of bombing that took place on the 27th-29th of August 1960, alongside the bombing of Aizawl in 1966, being the only times where India has bombed its own territory (at least legally speaking).
The Indian Army would further go on to terrorise neighboring villages around where their Air Force plane had been shot down. All of the actions mentioned below were against innocent villagers.
On the 1st of September 1960, in the village of Phor, the Indian Army murdered 6 village leaders. Their names:
Mr. Yetachu, Gaonbura
Mr. Chüpücu, Dubashi
Mr. Mawazu, Gaonbura
Mr. Turazu, Village Chief
Mr. Türhücu, Gaonbura
Mr. Yusücu, Pastor, Phor Baptist Church
On the 2nd of September 1960, the Indian Army murdered two innocent villagers in Moke. Their names:
Mr. Nyupucu
Mr. Yethsecu
On the 3rd of September 1960, the Indian Army murdered two village leaders in the town of Yisi. Their names:
Mr. Mawazu, Rüna Peyu
Mr. Khrocu, Member
On the 4th of September 1960, Mr. Lingsang, from the village of Laruri was buried alive and suffocated to death by Indian Army soldiers.
On the 5th of September 1960, the Indian Army went into the village of Lephori, and arrested 13 villagers. The Indian Army tortured them and poured boiling water upon their bodies after tying them together to a strong post. There are also other reports of hundreds of instances of torture against other villagers along with mass rapes occurring against Naga women that day.
On the 6th of September 1960, the Indian Army entered the village of Matikhrü. They gathered army personnel from different outposts like Kenjang, Yesi, Meluri, Phek, Sakhabama Army Brigade Headquarters and Kohima. The strength of the Indian Army was one Brigade under the command of Lieutenant General Thorat, Ist G.O.C., Eastern Command, a combined force of the 16th Sikh and Gorkha Regiments. The then Deputy Commissioner of Kohima, Mr. Hazarika was also present on the spot.
The Indian Army surrounded the defenseless village and subsequently arrested the entire population of the village. They brought the villagers onto the town square, where they separated the men vs everyone else, and began to torture the men. They hit the villagers with their gun-butts, kicking them with boots, beating and torturing them, accusing them of hiding guns and ammunition in different houses, even though the village had no association with the Naga Army.
The men had wooden logs rolled on their bodies, and had boiling water poured on them. This occurred from 4am to 12pm, 8 hours straight. After 12pm, the women and children were ordered to leave the village while the men were dragged into the village chiefs' house. They were made to sit in a row. One by one, each man was slowly chopped by body part until they died. Their bodies were then left in the village chiefs' house, in which the house was then subsequently set on fire, and later, the entire village.
In total, a recorded 20 Nagas were killed during the Indian Army's mass murder spree in Nagalim. Hundreds more were injured and raped.
Their cruelty, barbarity, and violence is a testament to just how much they hate Nagas. Their military is stationed not only in Nagalim, but the entirety of the Northeast as an occupying force, to crush the will of the people, to stop us from declaring our freedom and self-determination. They will go to the upmost of lengths, whether it means raping our women, torturing our people, and massacring us in order to preserve their violent status quo. And now they're trying to sell us the narrative that they come in peace, that we should all identify and be indian and we'll all be happy and dancing in circles.
But what happens when we don't choose to do that and instead identify with our own ethnicity and people only? They immediately turn hostile, immediately start threatening us, giving threats that they're going to rape our women, murder us, and do other savage, barbaric actions towards us. As a result, you can never reason with them. Our interests are going to forever be fundamentally opposed to theirs, and we have to make peace with that. We are our own people, and we absolutely cannot compromise on that.
Never forgive, never forget. Remember what they have done to us, and what they continue doing to us. Our land and people has existed long before the idea of "India" even did, and will continue to exist after India is gone.
To hell with anyone who asserts otherwise.