Aizawl, Mar 6 : Hundreds of Mizos took out a silent procession here on Saturday to mark the 45th year of the Indian Air Force bombardment on the Mizoram capital and other places. The attacks had turned the beautiful hill town into ashes, five days after the Mizo National Front, led by the late Laldenga, declared "independence from the Indian Union".
Holding placards reading "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they did to us," and "No India, No Cry", the rallyists demanded a public apology from the Centre "for attacking its own citizens with combat aircraft as if the Mizos were its enemies".
Former Lok Sabha member H Lallungmuana, who addressed the demonstrators, regretted that the Prime Minister and the UPA chairperson "still refuse to apologise to the Mizos for the Centre's terrible action 45 years ago". He added, "The Mizos will try to break away from their step parents if the feeling of being neglected or Delhi's step-motherly attitude towards them continues."
Even as Mizoram is one of the most peaceful states not only in the region but also in the country, the ghastly memories of the IAF attacks continue to haunt all those who had survived the aerial strikes. IAF had then used Toofani and Hunter jets to carry out strikes on MNF volunteers, who had laid siege to the Assam Rifles headquarters in Aizawl, on March 5, 1966.
Though there's no official record of any human casualties during the air raids in Aizawl and places such as Tlabung on the Mizoram-Bangladesh border and Sangau and Hnahlan on the Mizoram-Myanmar boundary, locals say at least 20 people were killed in the IAF attacks. "In the first wave of the attack, the combat planes used machine guns. Later, bomb attacks were carried out," said Mawia, a 67-year-old resident of Aizawl, who still shudders to think of the strikes. "The IAF resumed the air strikes the very next day and continued the operation for five long hours," added Mawia.
A retired IAF wing commander said the combat planes used the Tezpur air force base to attack Mizoram in March, 1966.
While the MNF, which had launched an armed movement against the forces from March 1, 1966 for a "sovereign Mizoram", was banned by the government in 1968, many Mizos still rue that "the Centre has not come up with any satisfactory explanations on why India had used such a huge force against its own citizens in the name of suppressing a handful of insurgents".
The then Assam government had said the IAF planes were only dropping food supplies to the troops deployed in the inaccessible Mizo district (then one of the hill districts of Assam). Two member of the Assam assembly, Stanley D D Nichols Roy and Hoover H Hynniewta, who visited Mizoram immediately after the aerial attacks, had shown evidence to his colleagues in the house that bombs were used in Mizoram.
John V Hluna, a college teacher and researcher, said, "We never wanted anything big from the Centre. All we wanted to is that the Prime Minister saying sorry in Parliament for all that it did in Mizoram in 1966."
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