It was 2004 when a bear mauled Nenwang Konyak in the forest in Mon district, high up in the hills along India’s border with Myanmar. The men in his village, Oting, rescued him and carried him home. He survived, thanks to them, but was left with a jagged scar running down his face.

When Nenwang heard that his village had called for a search team earlier this month to look for a group of laborers who were missing, he didn’t hesitate. He and his 23-year-old twin brothers joined them on Dec. 4, not knowing that the laborers had already been killed by Indian soldiers. Later that day, seven men in the search party were killed by the soldiers -– and Nenwang returned home without his twin brothers.