Members of All Assam Muslim Yuba Parishad (S) protest against the mob lynching of a rape-accused in Nagaland's Dimapur. (Press Trust of India file photograph))
The Nagaland government had failed to appreciate the gravity of last week's protests in Dimapur, which ended with a mob breaking into a prison, dragging out a rape accused and lynching him, sources in the Union home ministry told NDTV. So far, 42 people have been arrested in the case.
Here are the latest developments:
The state police had given permission for the protests to Naga Students' Federation, NGOs and associated front organisations on Thursday. But the state government asked for additional forces only when the situation had gone out of hand, sources said. The request came in at 3 pm, but within half-an-hour, Syed Sarif Uddin Khan was dead.
In its report to the home ministry, the state government said a large crowd had started moving towards the jail at 1 pm. But though reinforcements were rushed, the police were unable to open fire due to the presence of minors in the crowd.
Curfew, lifted for this morning after three days, has been imposed again in the city. Internet services - which were blocked after videos of the lynching were found to have been widely shared on the web - will be in place till at least 6 pm tomorrow. Phone text message services, which were stopped at the same time, have been resumed
There has been tension in the city after it was rumoured that Khan was an illegal immigrant from Bangladesh. That has been proved wrong. Khan's brothers are in the Indian Army and his father was in the Air Force.
There are also question marks over the rape case filed against him. The police said the report of the medical test of the woman is still awaited.
The issue found echo in Parliament today, with Congress members from Assam calling the matter a failure of the Nagaland government. Gaurav Gogoi of Congress said the Central forces deployed at the jail failed to protect the accused.
Shiv Sena, an ally of the NDA, said the mob fury reflects people's anger towards sexual crimes against women. An editorial in Sena mouthpiece Saamna said it would be a mockery to term the incident as a law and order failure, since, the government "does not think of the deteriorating law and order situation when women are raped, but thinks about it when a rape accused in punished in public".
On Thursday, thousands broke into the Dimapur Central Jail, dragged out Khan, stripped him, beat him up, tied him to a motorcycle and dragged him for 7 km. He died on the way. The mob then hung his body at a roadside roundabout.
Widespread protests took place across Nagaland since, and at Mr Khan's hometown Karimganj in neighbouring Assam, where his funeral was held on Sunday. Over 10,000 people attended the funeral.
Twenty people were arrested for the crime this morning, taking the total number of arrests to 42. But Khan's brother Jamal Khan has alleged that most of his killers are still roaming free.
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