[ Karyir Riba ]
ROING, Jan 21: The uncontrolled tourist situation in Lower Dibang Valley district, which was like a ticking bomb, did not take long to go off as a group of tourists from Assam attempted to kill a local boy in Mayudia on Saturday.
The tourists – a group of boys on motorcycles – got into a scuffle with a couple of local boys in Mayudia, located 52 kms from Roing. Mayudia is a tourist hotspot, especially during the snowfall season.
Apparently, the boys from Assam did not like being reprimanded by the local boys for their riding skills and for not following traffic and civic rules.
Easily outnumbering the local boys, a few miscreants from the group of 20 or so took to bashing them up, using their helmets as well as sticks. Not satisfied with thrashing them, the miscreants reportedly threw one of the victims off the mountainside and took off with the motor bike keys of the victims, leaving them to die in the cold. The incident took place at around 5 pm.
According to a family member of the victim who was thrown down the mountainside, the boy held on to a shrub and was later helped up by his friend who had also been left grievously injured by the Assamese boys.
As news reached relatives and friends in Roing, hundreds of community members stood guard at the bridge in Cheh Kilo (6 kms from Roing), the one route out of Mayudia to Roing. Tourists were made known of the incident and were requested to cooperate in identifying the main culprits.
Twenty-four biker boys were rounded up and their bikes seized by the police.
On being interrogated, four of the boys were found to be guilty of the crime. Later, the victims identified the four culprits and they were immediately arrested and taken into custody.
A case under Sections 341/324/307/34 IPC has been registered against the four, who belong to Kakopathar, Assam. The rest of the 20 boys have complied to be presented as prime witnesses in the case.
Credit here should be given to the community, as an extremely sensitive situation, which could have been easily blown out of proportion, was averted by the tactful handling of the situation by the local Idu Mishmi youths and elders, who provided complete cooperation to the police for controlling the case through legal means.
“If this same thing was to happen in Assam, things would have been completely different,” said an agitated denizen.
SP Sanjay Kumar Sain, who was constantly monitoring the case, has expressed appreciation for the cooperation from the local youths and elders of the Idu Mishmi community.
“Things can be solved amicably and everything took place as per legal actions with full cooperation from the community throughout the procedure,” he said.
