EMN
DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 19
THE United Naga Tribes Association of Border Areas (UNTABA) has outrightly refute the allegation made by Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi who claimed that the presence of the NAP personnel had stood in the way for those displaced Assamese people in returning to their homes.
The association said that there was no NAP personnel posted in the affected areas from Nagaland side adhering to the various interim agreements made between the Government of Assam and Nagaland since 1972.
UNTABA Chairman, Hukavi T. Yepthomi and Asst. Gen. Secretary Yanger Sangtam in a release asserted that those affected people were not Assamese people as claimed by the chief minister but were questionable origins including Advasis, the tea tribe who were granted settlement in the traditional and ancestral land of the Nagas by the government of Assam, abrogating arbitrarily all the existing Interim Agreements of bilateral and tripartite between Assam, Nagaland and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India for all these years as buffer zone.
The UNTABA demanded the Assam chief minister to come and visit the area by himself and assess ‘whether a single NAP personnel have been posted there and see for himself how many illegal armed Assam police are being posted in the Naga areas beside the so called ‘neutral force’ who are working under the single command of Assam police authority and continuously harassing the Naga people living in the border areas all these years inspite of the agreements and agreements.’
The UNTABA strongly demanded the government of Nagaland not to allow resettlement of these people under any circumstances and take the matter to the Ministry of Home Affairs immediately so that such illegal infiltration of people of questionable origins facilitated by Assam into Naga areas are stopped once for all in the larger interest of the generations to come.
The UNTABA further demanded the Ministry of Home Affairs to bring all the neutral forces of SSB or any others under the direct command of MHA to prevent the Assam government from further facilitations of these people of questionable origins into Nagaland.
“Let it be known by all the stake-holders that the core demand of the Naga people is: Return back all those Naga traditional and ancestral land arbitrarily transferred by the then British Imperial Government of India way back in 1866-67 onwards, the total area of those transferred land amounts to 4974.16 square Miles or roughly 12883.07 square Kilometers as per the historical records available with the Government of Nagaland, Border Affairs Department.”
The association said, “the UNTABA, on behalf of the Naga people have been demanding to both the Government of Assam and Government of India to furnish in detail: i) Total areas of Reserve Forests deforested by Forest Department, Government of Assam, ii) Numbers of Townships, villages and other inhabitations, the establishments of economic infrastructure including Oil and other mineral resources industry centers, iii) The complete lists of well armed Assam Police and other security Posts established inside Naga lands within the parameter of the records available that were established by Assam, completely disregarding the bipartite and tripartite Interim Agreements between the Government of India, Assam and Nagaland, and submit immediately to the Government of Nagaland so that the people and the Government of both the States can finally demarcate the inter-State boundary amicably once for all; and iv) Abrogate all the existing Agreements since the Government of Assam have unilaterally discarded all those agreements.”
Stating that till the final inter-State boundary is demarcated in accordance to the Article 3 & 4 of the Constitution of India as referred to in the 13th Amendment Act during the establishment of Nagaland as the 16th State under the Union of India, the association asserted that any arrangement that may be initiated between the two states including ‘LoC’ must cover all the traditional and ancestral Naga lands under Assam.
The UNTABA felt that until and unless such realistic steps are undertaken, all the unwarranted clashes in the border areas between the ‘people of questionable origins’ and the Naga people cannot be prevented by half-hearted step initiated by both the government which was only meant to pacify the recurrent situations.
