Mystery holes in bedroom wall of SDO Tadubi residence – How these spoke of scary past ?

Jarnail Singh
After completing IAS training at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration Mussoorie, on 31st July 1976 I joined as Sub Divisional Officer Mao Maram Subdivision at Tadubi. The then Mao Maram Subdivision is now the whole of Senapati district. Tadubi is about 5,600 feet above sea level. The SDO’s residence was a more than 25 years old Assam type structure of four rooms which had cement plastered bamboo walls. The GCI sheet roof was supported by wooden pillars and rafters. Due to strong south-westerly winds, the building had become slightly tilted towards the northern side. There was a steep downwards slope on the northern side of the residence. Electricity was available from Nagaland once in a while. Water used to be carried to bathrooms by buckets. There was no police protection for the SDO.
Within a couple of days of my joining, MK Priyobrata Singh came to my office. I was awestruck by Priyobrata Singh’s personality. He was very polite, humble and soft spoken. He had come to meet members of Naga National Council [NNC] who were staying in Sajouba Peace Camp under the Shillong Accord signed between NNC and governments of India and Nagaland. He also took me to Sajouba Peace Camp and introduced me to inmates so that urgent issues of inmates could be resolved as and when they arose. The camp inmates did have some issues which Priyobrata Singh noted before leaving for Imphal.
The eastern wall SDO’s residence had three through holes of about half an inch diameter at a height of about seven to eight feet. Two holes were separated by about three inches and the third was about one feet away from the two others. Even when there was complete darkness inside the bedroom room, light used to enter inside through these holes. While lying on bed, I could directly see these holes as these were towards the leg side of the bed. In the morning, the first light used to enter my bedroom through these holes. I used to wonder about the purpose of these holes. ‘Why would anyone make such holes in the bedroom wall’, I used to think. I often wondered why none of my predecessors had closed these holes.
One guess, I could easily make after seeing these holes was that these could have been made by bullets. Since the building was an Assam type structure with thin walls made of bamboo with cement layers, bullets had easily passed through the wall. But if someone had tried to assassinate SDO, then he should have fired at a much lower level, say at three to four feet level. Why would anyone target the SDO’s bedroom and fire bullets at a level of seven to eight feet high? This seemed strange.
After a few months I asked some elderly people in Tadubi. Very reluctantly, they narrated a scary and dangerous incident which had taken place about ten years back at SDO’s residence. The Naga ‘undergrounds’, as the Naga separatists were known then, met SDO (name withheld) at his residence and demanded money. As SDO did not give them any money, they tied the SDO with wires taken from a military telephone which had been installed at SDO’s residence. Then they locked him up in the residence and put up guards on the front and side doors. But the SDO untied himself and slipped through the rear window of the bedroom towards the north downward slope, as the window did not have iron bars.
After about four-five hours when militants opened the front door, they found out that SDO had already escaped from the rear window and went down the steep downward slope on the northern side whereas the militants were guarding the eastern, western and southern sides of the residence. They had not imagined that SDO would escape towards the northern side. In sheer anger of guarding an empty residence for hours, they opened fire at the residence and bullets passed through the eastern wall of the bedroom. These mystery holes were from gun shots of militants out of desperation after losing their prized catch.
This incident reminds us today of risks and dangers faced by civil servants who served in hill areas of Manipur, without any security protections during the peak of insurgency in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Even though, there was relative peace in the hills after the Shillong Accord of 1975, after hearing this incident, I always remained a bit fearful during my stay at Tadubi. When I left Tadubi in August 1977, these holes were still there.
The writer is former Chief Secretary of Manipur and also served as Administrator of Manipur University