Has India's bombing-practice intentionally put ethnic minorities, who look like Chinese, at risk? On June 8, 2018, Bini Todum, a retired SSB soldier, is the latest victim of target practice and drill conducted by Indian Air Force in Arunachal, a state bordering China. The drill took place over Ruyu village in Dollungmukh circle of Kamle district. Weeks have gone by but the victim's still unable to walk or regain the minimal use of his legs. He was at his home when the Indian bomb was dropped from the air.
This is not the first time that India has dropped its bombs on the civilians from the air. In 1992, Dollungmukh resident Bini Tabom died from a similar injury caused by the Indian military aircrafts. Till date, the family of the deceased hasn't receive a penny either from the state government or from the IAF.
Tayu Murtem – Todum’s grandson – said the IAF had conducted a bombing drill in the area on 5 June too. The shrapnel hit & killed three mithuns and nearly hit a group of locals, who, in the nick of time, jumped under a tree.
Treating the Chinese-looking minorities like animals is nothing new. They are disparagingly called Chinkis by India's majority, who would often play Chinese ringtones on their mobile phones at the back of a Chinki in order to induce a riot of laughters in the crowd, be it inside the bus, train or at other public places.
Indian Air Force had in time past intentionally bombed the unarmed village folk, who look like Chinese, in the Indian state of Mizoram. The Indian media cynically called it "Food rationing from the air". On March 5, 1966, four fighter jets of the Indian Air Force took off from Tezpur, Kumbigram and Jorhat in Assam for an aerial attack on the "Chinese looking civilians" of Mizoram. They used machine guns and incendiary bombs on those civilians, who already were enduring the pains of a famine. They'd asked the Indian government for food, but instead of food they got bombs dropped on them from the air. The aerial assault continued till March 13.
India's excuse for this aerial assault was that the Mizo National Front (MNF) has, in a fit of rage against India for not helping the famine affected land, declared independence from India on February 29, 1966. However, there's a gap in Indian logic, because India bombarded those civilian areas that have no presence of MNF troops.
These are the stories of pain of ethnic minorities, whose outcry has been suppressed by bullets & bombs till today, in NE India.
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