SHILLONG: Militant groups often use social media to garner sympathy for their cause, but this time the mainstream news channels have put the GNLA on the wrong foot.
“Normally, GNLA sympathizers and over ground workers flood social media websites with their side of the story. But for once they have been silenced by the overwhelming condemnation,” top police officials in Shillong said.
As national television channels on Wednesday started beaming live pictures of the 35 year old mother of four children executed by GNLA militants in a gruesome fashion, leading to large scale condemnation of the group and its acts, the militant organization was at a loss for words.
The cruelty of the murder was such that even international news agencies such as the BBC World made an extensive coverage of the incident for their viewers abroad while national television networks including Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines today and NDTV gave round the clock coverage for the national viewers as several million people in the country heard about Garo Hills and its cruelty.
The pictures of the victim dressed in a traditional blue Dakmanda dress slumped on a chair outside her home with a portion of her head blown off by the militants gun quickly became the most shared picture on WhatsApp and other social networks.
Words of condemnation quickly began to flow in on the social website with some calling Garo Hills the next Afghanistan and the GNLA the local Taliban.
A comparable scenario was in 2010, when All India Gorkha League leader Madan Tamang was stabbed to death in the heart of Darjeeling town. The repeated beaming of the partially beheaded body of Madan Tamang in television channels had put the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha on the wrong foot.