North East students’ body demands capital punishment for Anjel Chakma’s killers in Dehradun

The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) has demanded capital punishment for the assailants who caused the death of Tripura student Anjel Chakma in Uttarakhand’s Dehradun.

The apex students’ body of the region also joined other organisations and rights bodies to seek an anti-racism act, which it believed would act as a deterrent.

In a memorandum addressed to Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Tuesday (December 30, 2025), the NESO further demanded the establishment of at least one special police station to deal with cases related to racial discrimination and atrocities on people from the northeast.

The organisation said the 24-year-old Anjel and his brother Michael were assaulted and stabbed on December 9, resulting in the former’s death on December 26. It said this happened because “they looked differently from the rest of the Aryan race and were hurled with racial abuses, which were demeaning and degrading.”

Condemning the attack, the NESO said people from the northeast had been facing such harassment in different parts of the country. It urged Mr Dhami to immediately intervene so that authorities take effective measures to provide mental, social, and physical security to the students and people from the northeast studying and residing in Dehradun and other parts of Uttarakhand.

The All India Chakma Students’ Union had written to Mr Dhami on Monday (December 29, 2025), seeking the transfer of the probe into Anjel’s death to the Central Bureau of Investigation and the shifting of the trial outside Uttarakhand, preferably to Delhi.

Tarun Prasad Chakma, the father of the deceased, also urged the Uttarakhand government to ensure the protection of people from the northeast in mainland India.

“My appeal is that what happened to my son should not happen to other children from the northeast. The northeast is also a part of India. We are also Indians,” he said.