MHA told to help find Nagaland documents

Kohima | September 2 : In a major boost to Nagaland in the border dispute with neighboring Assam state, the Local Commission on border has asked the Ministry of Home Affairs and Survey of India to help trace Nagaland’s original documents which were claimed to have been “lost” by MHA and Assam. Nagaland made this application to the Local Commission on the Assam-Nagaland border issue in its eight hearing today at Delhi where the state was to submit a written statement on its claimed areas.
In its application, Nagaland made it clear before the local commission that it is not in a position to give the written statement unless its original documents which were purportedly lost by Assam, are returned.
Following the submission by Nagaland, the local commission adjourned the hearing and directed the MHA and the Survey of India to help the state trace the original documents which were claimed “lost”. In this connection, October 13 has been fixed for a meeting between MHA, Survey of India and Nagaland state to start the work of salvaging the records. Several important documents in original belonging to Nagaland were earlier submitted to the MHA and were later passed on to Assam state. However, Assam state claimed to have “lost” the documents and admitted the same to the local commission during a hearing earlier. Representative of Nagaland had earlier demanded that all its original documents submitted to the MHA be returned. The state also sought adjournment of the last local commission hearing held on July 2 at Delhi.
The Nagaland delegation was led by Commissioner for Nagaland HK Khulu. The Advisor (Border), officials from the Border Directorate attended today’s hearing along with the AG of Nagaland and the Senior Counsel. They have being camping in Delhi since August 29 and had a series of consultations, preparing its strategy for the Local Commission hearing.