A week after businessman Abhijeet Nath was lynched by a mob in a central Assam village , the sister of his fiancée has recounted how the killers were allegedly casual about having bludgeoned him to death along with his friend, audio engineer Nilotpal Das.
Apart from being nonchalant, the people who lynched the duo took pleasure in conveying the news of their gruesome death, Airin Gogoi wrote in a Facebook post.
“I was arranging my office desk, shutting down the computer and was about to return from work. It was 8:05 pm, June 8. I received a call from my sister with a shaken and panicked voice. ‘Airin ba (elder sister), someone received Abhijeet’s phone,’ she said,” Ms. Gogoi wrote.
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“Bhontie (younger sister) told the man to give the phone to Abhijeet. No, the man replied in broken Assamese. Where is he, she asked. Dead, we killed him, he’s lying on the road, the man said. Please don’t speak like that; why did you kill him, she asked. Who are you, he asked. I am his wife-to-be, please don’t kill him, she pleaded. You cannot get your man, we killed him, he said and asked where Abhijeet was from. Guwahati, sister said. He can’t return to Guwahati, read about his death in the newspaper tomorrow,” she wrote.
The man on the phone had treated Abhijeet and Nilotpal like some objects and seemed to derive pleasure from killing them, Ms. Gogoi wrote.
“I was blank for a moment, called Abhijeet’s dad who was returning home from Morigaon, his workplace, for weekend. I narrated the whole thing, he was totally unaware. Being a father, his response was positive and told me not to worry and to console my sister. He said, ‘I will talk with Abhijeet’s mom whether he went to Karbi Anglong or not’,” she wrote.
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Ms. Gogoi said Abhijeet and Nilotpal had gone to Karbi Anglong to contact fishermen there for collecting a rare fish known as Channa stewartii. “A Mumbai fish breeder had told Abhijeet the fish is available only in Karbi Anglong. His room is full with aquariums. He was a dog lover. His dogs Spike, Aizen and Zendaya and his fishes don’t know he is no more,” she said.
Ms. Gogoi said Abhijeet had called her sister about 6 pm saying they had set off for Guwahati. Abhijeet’s mother called him at 7 pm and someone picked it up. But there were some noises that made her think he was in a marketplace.
“My sister called at 8 pm and got that terrible news,” she said.
‘Rename waterfalls’
Noted Assamese author Rongbong Terang, who belongs to the Karbi tribe, has suggested that the Kangthilangso waterfalls that the lynched duo visited on that fateful day should be renamed after them.
“Let’s call the waterfalls Abhi-Neel Jalpropat,” Mr. Terang, former president of Assam Sahitya Sabha, said on Thursday. He rejected the suggestion of Tuliram Ronghang, chief executive member of Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council, that statues of the two men be erected at the village they were killed.
“The statues will only remind people of the gruesome day,” Mr. Terang said.
On Wednesday,Director General of Police Kuladhar Saikia said Mr. Das and Mr. Nath were set up by a man named Alphajos Timung , who had an axe to grind. The man had called up members of the lynch mob and sold them the story that the duo were escaping in a black SUV after kidnapping a child.
Police said they have so far arrested 28 people for lynching the duo while 35 others have been arrested for spreading rumours and hate-mongering via social media.