GUWAHATI: Not just the common man, coronavirus has impacted the insurgents too. Major Naga rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagalim or NSCN-IM on Tuesday decided to cancel or postpone a series of upcoming events as preventive measures.
In a statement to the media, the outfit said the decision was also taken "to stand in solidarity with the declaration of COVID-19 as pandemic by the World Health Organization".
The rebel group, which runs a parallel government called Government of the People’s Republic of Nagalim (GPRN), decided that there would be no celebration of the "Naga Republic Day' on March 21 and holding of the GPRN’s budget session.
The celebration of silver jubilee of Naga Freedom Fighters Widow’s Welfare Federation has been also postponed. The outfit also decided not to organise any interview, press conference, media interaction and meeting.
The GPRN, which has various ministries including finance, usually holds the budget session during the last week of March. It is here that it chalks out its "tax" structure and expenditure for the year.
The taxes, collected from salaried people, traders, transporters, contractors and also households, help the group to meet expenses on food, transport, salaries disbursed to its members etc. Every household is required to pay the annual "house tax" to the outfit.
There are at least six other extremist groups in the state and they too levy similar taxes on people to keep their "government" running.
Traders and others have been at the receiving end for long by being forced to pay multiple taxes to the myriad groups. Earlier, some organisations had voiced concerns on the multiple taxes and insisted on "one government, one tax".