DIMAPUR, AUGUST 17 (MExN): The United Naga Tribes Association of Border Areas (UNTABA) today reiterated its demand for the Nagaland State Government to sincerely pursue the Assam-Nagaland border issue in the right perspective.
It asked that the government “fight vigorously for the implementation of the Interim Agreement in letter and spirit by evicting the illegal settlements in all the Reserve Forests along the border areas facilitated by the Assam Government and demand for the implementation of the 16 Points Agreement made between the Government of India and the people of Nagaland during the establishment of Nagaland statehood.”
The UNTABA further expressed concern at the Nagaland State Home Minister’s reported statements that “all efforts had been made to secure Nagaland border.
It termed this as “not only nonsensical but completely contradicting the Border Affairs Department who had been seriously involved in litigation process for the last 3(three) decades as Respondent No. 3 in the Civil Suit No. 2 of 1988 filed by AGP Government of Assam claiming in the Supreme Court that the inter State boundary between Assam and Nagaland is yet to be clearly demarcated.”
It said that such statements “clearly show complete lack of co-ordination amongst the authorities in the Government revealing complete lack of the sense of responsibility and the lack of political will on the issue and creating more confusion among the masses…”
The UNTABA stated that authorities in Assam had deployed 47 Assam Police Posts in all the border areas even inside Nagaland and from Nagaland side there are only 14 Nagaland Police Posts since the Interim Agreement was made between the 2 states in 1972.
Moreover, it stated that all the 11 Reserve Forests mentioned in the Interim Agreement of 1972 and re-affirmed in 1979, wherein the administrative power was given to the authorities in Assam on the conditions that no settlements shall be allowed, “now stands completely deforested by facilitating illegal settlements to the people of questionable origins from across the state even before these Reserve Forests are de-notified.”
It added that starting from Doldoli Reserve Forest near Dimapur to all the Reserve Forests along the border areas to Tiru Reserve Forest and Abhaypur Reserve Forest in Mon districts “have become a big township all along. Such are the hard realities completely over-looked by the successive Governments of Nagaland.”
