He had just finished performing. That should have been the end of it — music, a crowd, a good night, a drive home. Instead, Sikkim-based rapper Ugen Namgyal Bhutia, known widely as UNB, was allegedly hunted down on an empty stretch of road in Arunachal Pradesh’s Lower Dibang Valley district on Monday evening, beaten with a rod, and left bleeding with injuries to his head and face.
The attack happened around 6 PM near Tiwari Gaon. UNB and his team were on their way to Roing after performing at a festival in Anini when two vehicles began following their car. Not for a few minutes — for nearly an hour. Whoever these men were, they were patient. Deliberate. They allegedly covered their number plates with mud before finally intercepting UNB’s vehicle on an isolated section of road where there were no eyewitnesses, no cameras, and no mobile signal to call for help.
When they moved in, they moved fast. Around eight to ten men allegedly stormed out and began smashing UNB’s car with a rod. The rapper and his manager were assaulted. UNB was left with injuries to his head and face and swelling around one eye. It was only when a truck appeared in the distance that the attackers scattered and fled.
The complaint was filed at Roing Police Station at around 7:50 PM — nearly two hours after the attack. Poor mobile connectivity in the remote area caused the delay, police said. That detail alone says a lot about how vulnerable people are in these regions when something goes wrong.
Roing Police Station Officer-in-Charge Taniya Uli confirmed that police accompanied UNB’s team back to the site on Tuesday. The officer acknowledged the challenges — isolated location, zero eyewitnesses, and near-absent network coverage. A case has been registered under provisions covering wrongful restraint, voluntarily causing hurt, and criminal intimidation. The motive, at this point, remains unknown. Police are still working to identify the attackers.
What makes this incident feel particularly alarming is that it didn’t happen in isolation. Just days earlier, on September 16, National Award-winning filmmaker Dominic Sangma from Meghalaya — who heads the Screenwriting department at the Film and Television Institute of India’s campus near Itanagar — was allegedly attacked by two men after he stepped in to stop students from being harassed. His wife alleged that the accused also went after an FTII security guard and four students. Those two men, Techi Nanu and Techi Sanjay, have since been arrested.
Two incidents, within days of each other, both targeting creative professionals from outside Arunachal Pradesh, both happening in circumstances that feel far too calculated to be random. Whether there is any connection between the two cases is something authorities have not yet addressed, and it would be wrong to assume a link without evidence. But it’s impossible not to notice the pattern.
Artists travel across the Northeast to perform, to create, to connect communities. They do this work often on thin margins, navigating difficult terrain and remote locations. If they cannot feel safe doing that — if a rapper coming off a stage or a filmmaker walking home from an evening stroll becomes a target — it sends a chilling message that reaches far beyond just the individuals attacked.
Arunachal Pradesh needs to answer that message loudly, and quickly.
