Bhubaneswar, Dec. 6 -- Nagaland remained on the boil on Monday as an apex tribal body claimed the death toll in firing by security forces on civilians in Mon district mounted to 17, even as police maintained that 14 people were killed.

The first firing incident in which six civilians were killed, occurred when army personnel mistook coal mine workers returning home in a pick-up van on Saturday evening, to be insurgents belonging to the Yung Aung faction of the banned outfit NSCN (K).

As workers failed to reach their homes, local youth and villagers went in search of them and surrounded army vehicles. In the ensuing melee, one soldier was killed and many of the vehicles burnt down. Security forces who fired in self-defence killed another...