Oting, Mon: It has been a year since 31-year-old Yeihwang Konyak survived a massacre by security forces at Tiru, Oting, on December 4 that killed six coal miners over a case of “mistaken identity”. He was among the two that survived, only to be “neither dead nor alive”.
Nagaland had witnessed one of the worst tragedies in its history when a total of 14 civilians were killed following the ambush, and the death of one security personal.
“Even though he survived, he is not living his life. He has survived the incident but it is like he has not survived. He is not living at all,” Yeihwang’s elder brother Kanwang Konyak tells EastMojo.
Happiness, he said, is a feeling that Yeihwang hardly feels. “He does not feel happy and seeing him in this condition makes us feel bad and we also don’t feel like doing anything,” he added.
As we entered the house of the survivor, over a neatly mud-plastered floor near the fireplace was Yeihwang, seen sleeping on a mat covered with a thin blanket. His 44-year-old brother painfully recalls how one mistake of the security forces had overturned their own normal lives as they knew it.
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“They were supposed to return home that day because it was a Saturday and they usually return home from the coal mine at Tiru to attend church the next day, but since they did not return, we went to search for them,” he recounts.
That evening, a pick-up truck carrying eight coal miners was returning to Oting from Tiru. In what was supposed to be an ambush for militants, six miners were killed. Yeihwang and the other survivor were reportedly ‘dropped’ at a hospital in Dibrugarh under Assam by the security forces.
While the state government had initially paid for the medical expenses while Yeihwang was admitted at the hospital, the family was left on their own after that.
Narrating what his brother told the family, Kanwang said, “He received a bullet shot in the head near his ear. So he does not remember very clearly about what had happened that day. He told us that he realized something was wrong only the next day when he woke up at the hospital.”
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The incident has scarred the family, leaving Yeihwang physically and mentally unwell.
“Earlier, Yeihwang and I managed the household. Now, he is mostly bed-ridden. Since he was shot on the head, there is swelling and he often complains of his head spinning if he tries to move around. He would also go through epileptic-like-seizure from time to time and his hands and legs would stiffen. He also screams whenever in pain, and becomes breathless,” Kanwang informed.
He said that life for the family had become more difficult and complicated, and that they have no other choice but to accept the new normal life. “Our mother stays at home at all times to look after my brother. Even when I am at work, there are times when I would receive phone calls saying that something has happened to him and I have to return back from work, leaving things half done,” he shared.
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When Yeihwang is not in pain, he eats and drinks on his own, but at other times, it is the mother and the brother who assist the survivor. Confined within the four walls, the young miner struggles to step out of the house due to his physical and mental health issues.
“He prefers to sleep all the time because he says it relieves his pain a little. There is no peace of mind for us because of his condition. If he can eat on his own, roam and live, there would have been peace of mind but that is not even the case here,” the brother said.
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