Nagaland govt. asks employees to self-declare if they have relatives in underground organisations

Our Reporter
Dimapur, July 9 (EMN): The government of Nagaland has issued an order to collect information from all government employees to ascertain whether they have any family member or relatives as members of Naga “underground organisations”.

In a directive issued on July 7, the Home department instructed all administrative heads and heads of departments to obtain information from all government employees on a self-declaration form.

On the document, the employees are required to declare if they have any family members in the Naga “underground organisations”.

The department heads have been asked to submit the form containing the information of the employees to the Home department by August 7.

This exercise comes after the governor of Nagaland, RN Ravi, had termed Naga political groups as “armed gangs” in a letter to the chief minister, besides claiming that the state’s law and order situation has deteriorated.

Speaking to Eastern Mirror, a government employee shared that it was ‘very confusing’ as to why this was being done. “Will we be stigmatised and be kept under observation just because we have a relative in the underground (sic)?” the employee asked, adding that self- declaration is not necessary when there isn’t any involvement with the Naga groups.

Another government servant also argued that many Nagas have someone or the other working in one of the Naga groups. ‘So self-declaring would mean we are involved with them somehow, which is not the case,’ he said.