Oting killings: AFSPA renewed again, and still no trial
Soldiers killed 13 civilians in Oting, Nagaland, in 2021. AFSPA halted the case against 30 accused. As the law is renewed, families still await a trial.
At about 4.10 pm on 4 December 2021, a pick-up truck carrying eight coal miners was heading home to Oting village in Nagaland’s Mon district from the coal mines in the Tiru area. A few kilometres from the village, soldiers of the Army’s 21 Para Special Forces opened fire on it. Six of the men died on the spot and two were critically injured, according to a preliminary report by Nagaland’s Director General of Police and the state’s Commissioner, reported by Deccan Herald.
Chemwang Konyak’s son, 32, was among those killed that day. Nearly three years later, when the Supreme Court closed the criminal case against the 30 soldiers accused, he told Scroll: “We are deeply aggrieved and disheartened by the Supreme Court order. They should not have killed innocent villagers.”
The reason the case stopped is a single section of one law: the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, or AFSPA. On 25 September 2026, the Union Home Ministry extended AFSPA in Nagaland for another six months, from 1 October, in nine districts including Mon, Devdiscourse reported. As the law is renewed again, the Oting families are still waiting for a trial.
What happened in Oting
The state officials’ report said the soldiers fired apparently without trying to identify the people in the truck. When villagers heard the shots and went to look, the report said, they found security personnel apparently trying to hide the six bodies by loading them into another vehicle. A clash broke out, three security force vehicles were set on fire, and the soldiers fired again, killing seven more villagers. A soldier also died. The next day, in Mon, another man was killed when protesters attacked an Assam Rifles camp.
The Army’s 3 Corps said it had launched “a specific operation” in the Tiru area based on “credible” intelligence of insurgent movement. In Parliament on 6 December 2021, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said the government regretted the killings and that the vehicle had been asked to stop but had tried to flee, The Wire reported. The Army ordered a court of inquiry.
What AFSPA allows
AFSPA applies only in areas the government declares “disturbed”. There, under Section 4 of the Act, an officer may, after giving a warning, fire on and even cause the death of a person acting against the law or carrying weapons, if he believes it necessary to maintain public order. Soldiers may arrest people without a warrant and enter and search premises without one. These powers go well beyond what the police have anywhere else in the country.
Nagaland has lived under the Act, in one form or another, since it was passed in 1958, before the state itself was formed in 1963. Generations in districts such as Mon have grown up with soldiers holding these powers.
The investigation and the charge sheet
Nagaland Police set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT). On 30 May 2022 it filed a charge sheet in the Mon district court against 30 members of the operations team, including a Major, two Subedars and eight Havildars, under charges including murder, The Tribune reported. The SIT alleged that the team did not follow its standard operating procedure or rules of engagement, and fired “indiscriminately and disproportionately” at a vehicle of civilians without positive identification. These are allegations; none has been tested in a trial.
That is because of Section 6 of AFSPA. It says no prosecution can be brought against anyone acting under the Act without the prior sanction of the Union government. In July 2022 the Supreme Court stayed the proceedings, noting that the area was under AFSPA. In 2023 the Union government refused sanction to prosecute.
On 17 September 2024, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and PB Varale ruled: “The appeals are allowed. The proceedings in the impugned FIRs shall stand closed,” EastMojo reported. The court said the case could revive if sanction were ever granted, and that the Army remained free to take disciplinary action. Nagaland’s separate petition challenging the refusal of sanction was still pending at the time.
The people living it
Chemwang Konyak told Scroll that two of the survivors were still bedridden. One Oting resident told the site: “We don’t know the procedure, whom to approach, what to do [and] how to do it.” The Oting Students’ Union called the killings “a painful scar in the hearts of the entire community”, according to Eastern Mirror, and said in a statement: “Together, we must continue to fight for accountability.” The Konyak Students’ Union called the ruling a “clear violation of the principles of justice and fairness”.
Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio said the state had “already registered our protest and the Court will take it up”. In December 2021, weeks after the killings, the Nagaland Legislative Assembly had unanimously demanded that AFSPA be repealed.
What the government says
The Union government’s position is that AFSPA is needed in areas declared “disturbed”, where the armed forces work against insurgent groups and need legal protection to act. It reviews the law every six months. In April 2022 it cut back the areas under AFSPA in Nagaland, Assam and Manipur, citing better security, and the September 2026 order again covers only parts of Nagaland: nine districts and 21 police station areas in five others.
The wider picture
Oting was not the first time this question reached the courts, as the history of the Act shows. In 2005 a committee headed by retired Supreme Court judge B P Jeevan Reddy recommended that AFSPA be repealed. In 2016, hearing a petition on alleged extra-judicial killings in Manipur, the Supreme Court held that there is no absolute immunity for the armed forces under AFSPA, and that excessive force even in a disturbed area can be investigated. Yet Section 6 still means that whether soldiers stand trial is decided by the Union government, the same government that deploys them.
IPB News asked in December 2021 whether AFSPA protects security or violates human rights. Nearly five years on, the debate is the same, and Oting is still its sharpest example. For the full background, see the record of the 2021 Nagaland killings.
What would change it
Several paths are open, and none needs the law to vanish overnight. The Union government could grant sanction, or set out publicly why it refused. The Supreme Court could rule on Nagaland’s pending challenge to that refusal. The Army could make public the findings of its court of inquiry and any disciplinary action. Parliament could amend Section 6 so that an independent authority, rather than the government that deploys the troops, decides on sanction in cases involving civilian deaths. Or the Home Ministry could stop renewing AFSPA in districts such as Mon.
Those decisions sit with the Union Home Ministry, the Defence Ministry, the Supreme Court and Parliament. In Oting, the families of the 13 civilians killed on 4 December 2021 are still waiting for any of them.
More stories beneath the headline in Third Eye. For daily news, follow IPB News.
Sources: Deccan Herald, 7 December 2021 · The Wire, 6 December 2021 · The Tribune (PTI), 11 June 2022 · EastMojo, 17 September 2024 · Scroll, 23 September 2024 · Eastern Mirror · Devdiscourse, 25 September 2026 · IPB News, December 2021 · 2021 Nagaland killings (Wikipedia)
