With the Government of India tightening its noose on the National Socialist Council of Nagaland - Khaplang (NSCN-K) faction led by its leader SS Khaplang, the outfit has announced that it would take the ‘illegal military and political oppression of the Nagas’ by the Indian Government to the international forum.
In a statement issued to the media on Monday, the NSCN faction said that the Nagas would no longer be mute spectators but would aggressively pursue their rights with every conceivable avenue at their disposal including international campaigns.
The faction, however, did not specify which international forum they would approach against the “oppression” by Indian Government on Nagas.
The NSCN (K) had on March this year abrogated from the 14-year-old ceasefire agreement with the Government of India and started targeting security forces in three States — Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Manipur.
On June 4 this year, the Naga militant faction dealt a lethal blow to security forces by ambushing a convoy of the Indian Army at Chandel district in Manipur and killed 18 soldiers and injured 11 others. Following this, Indian Army had also intensified its operations in some areas particularly along the Indo-Myanmar border and even launched an operation inside Myanmar to bust camps of the northeastern militants.
“From pre-historic times to the modern era, the Nagas and Indians were civilizations apart and had no affinity in any aspect. The Nagas thus demands nothing of India but only asks her forceful occupation and militarisation to stop. There is no issue to negotiate or to discuss but for India to leave Naga country. The conflict shall cease then and there on,” the statement issued by the militant faction on Monday warned.
“The recent unprecedented uproar of India’s political and military establishments in the aftermath of June 4, 2015 assault on Indian Army by NSCN led forces would have been justified had Indian leaders acted equally concerned for the plight of the Nagas, who have been ceaselessly struggling for more than sixty years,” the statement said.
“India also must acknowledge that sovereign birth right of the Nagas is an inalienable truth that has been progressively nurtured and fertilised by the blood and lives of thousands of Nagas both civilians and armed patriots alike since British intrusion well prior to any Naga-India contact,” it said.