'Vehicle was signalled to stop but it tried to flee': Amit Shah explains how the Nagaland firing unfolded

New Delhi, Dec 06: At least 14 civilians and one soldier were killed in a botched ambush in Nagaland's Mon district, as the security operations went awry on Sunday. The incident was echoed in Parliament today as the opposition demanded an inquiry.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah today told the Lok Sabha the centre regretted the deaths of 14 civilians, while explaining how the Nagaland civilian killings unfolded.

Shah said, Army had received info on movement of extremists near Tiru, Mon. On that basis, one unit of Army's 21 Para Commando laid an ambush in suspected area. A vehicle reached there, it was signalled to stop but it tried to flee. On suspicion of carrying extremists, it was fired upon.

6 out of the 8 people in vehicle died. It was later found to be a case of mistaken identity. 2 others who were injured were taken to nearest health centre by Army.

After receiving news of this, local villagers surrounded the Army unit, set 2 vehicles on fire and attacked them.

As a result, one jawan of the security forces died; many other jawans injured. Security forces had to resort to firing for self-defence and to disperse crowd. This caused death of 7 more civilians, some others injured. Local administration-Police tried to bring the situation to normalcy.

After the incident, on Dec 5 evening, an agitated crowd of around 250 people vandalised the company operating base (COB) of Assam Rifles in Mon city & set the COB building on fire. Assam Rifles had to fire bullets to disperse the crowd. This caused death of one more civilian.

However, the government directed all the agencies toensure that such unfortunate incidents do not take place again in the future while taking up such drives.