GUWAHATI: The S S Khaplang faction of Naga insurgent group National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-K), which killed 18 Army personnel in a deadly ambush in Manipur’s Chandel district last month, has threatened to make public India’s “illegal military and political oppression” of the Naga community if the group were to be proscribed by New Delhi.
“If a ban were to be imposed on NSCN-K, then India’s illegal military and political oppression of Nagas will be presented before international forums.
“The Nagas will no longer remain naive and mute spectators, but pursue their right aggressively with every conceivable avenue at their disposal, including international campaigns,” the NSCN-K said on Monday.
Taking strong exception to the Centre’s attempts to outlaw the “legitimate struggle”, the outfit warned the government about the fate of its citizens “sustaining and prospering in Naga-inhabited country”.
The outfit claimed that Nagas and Indians shared no cultural affinity and as such, the Army must end its forceful occupation and militarisation of “Naga country”.
The NSCN-K, which had revoked its 14-year-long ceasefire with the Centre in March, said there was no room for any negotiations and that India must leave the region.
Only then will the conflict cease, the group said.
“The recent unprecedented uproar of India’s political and military establishments in the aftermath of the June 4 assault on the Indian Army by NSCN-K-led forces would have been justified had Indian leaders been equally concerned about the plight of the Nagas, who have been ceaselessly struggling under her yoke for more than 60 years,” the NSCN-K faction said.
It asked the Central government to acknowledge that the “sovereign birthright of the Nagas is an inalienable truth that has been progressively nurtured and fertilised by the blood and lives of thousands belonging to the community” since the British intrusion (into the region) prior to any Naga-India contact.
“The mass executions, torture, rapes and atrocities committed by Indian forces on innocent Nagas over the decades cannot be erased from the psyche of Nagas.”