The soldiers of the 21 para special forces of the Indian Army, who were allegedly involved in the December 4 killings at Oting in Nagaland, won’t undergo any kind of civil trial.
The Army will try the special forces troopers, who were allegedly involved in the incident.
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This was claimed by sources, as reported by news agency IANS.
“All the accused are highly-trained personnel of the Indian Army who were on a mission to neutralise a group of militants, including some of the top leadership of the NSCN-KYA,” the report quoted a source at the Indian Army’s eastern command.
The source further stated that the chargesheet filed by the SIT tries to implicate that the SF soldiers were at the incident site “with the intention to kill innocent villagers”.
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“This is far from the truth,” the source claimed as quoted by the report.
“It is unfortunate that the van carrying residents of Oting arrived at the spot exactly at the time when the militants were about to get there. The militants were close by and got away, thanks to the confusion,” the source added.
The report further quoted a retired officer of Lieutenant General rank said that allowing a civil court to try the SF personnel would amount to “throwing them to the wolves”.
This would affect the morale of the troops who would be reluctant to obey orders, he said.
Meanwhile, the Indian Army completed its Court of Inquiry (CoI) into the Oting killings in Nagaland, where troopers of the 21 para-SF gunned down 14 civilians in December last year.