Limalenden Longkumer
Mokokchung | August 8
The proposed incursion called by the All Assam Students Union (AASU) towards Longtho under Tsurangkong range of Mokokchung district, Nagaland, and the propaganda to dismantle the Nagaland police check post at Tsutapala failed, even as about five hundred AASU volunteers proceeded from Maraini up to Sonawal. The AASU called off its stir and withdrew from Sonawal, a small township at the Assam-Nagaland border, about five kilometers away from Tsutapala, after the district administration of Jorhat intervened. This was disclosed during a brief informal meeting held between the Deputy Commissioner of Mokokchung and his Jorhat counterpart. Both the Superintendents of Police Mokokchung and Jorhat as well as leaders of Ao Senden were also present at the meeting held at Tsutapala at the Assam-Nagaland border. The Jorhat DC LS Changsan said that situation at the Assam side of the border was under control. She also expressed regret over the turn of events that had been developing in the border region over the past few months. Implying that the Assam-Nagaland border dispute should be brought to a compromise, she said, “There has to be some meeting point.” The Mokokchung DC Abhishek Singh while interacting with his Jorhat counterpart said that the people of Assam should understand the land holding system in Nagaland. The administration of both districts of Jorhat and Mokokchung felt that the bone of contention of the dispute is that the people of Assam claim that the Nagas are encroaching Assam’s forest land while the Nagas claim otherwise. The Nagas claim that they are only living in their own land, which has been theirs since time immemorial. However, a leader of Ao Senden, Wabong Walling, held a different view of the situation. He was apprehensive that there might be some other external elements responsible for the latest state of affairs in the border. The Nagas had been living peacefully with the people of Assam even during the head-hunting days, he said.
The withdrawal of the proposed march by the AASU from Sonawal in Assam averted a full scale confrontation between the peoples of the two neighbouring states of Assam and Nagaland. Volunteers from all the villages under Tsurangkong range numbering several thousands were found in the area apparently ready for any kind of combat.
Meanwhile, fretfulness and apprehension crept Mokokchung town today with volunteers from all fifteen wards of Mokokchung town converging by the thousands at the premises of the Ao Senden’s office, most of them with daos and spears and other combat gears. There was enormous pressure from the volunteers that they may be permitted by the Ao Senden to go down to Tsutapala, which is about seventy kilometers away from Mokokchung town. However, the Ao Senden leaders did not give consent to their demand, since the AASU had withdrawn their march. Nonetheless, some volunteers did proceed towards Tsutapala on their own. The general interpretation of the Ao Nagas is that the proposed march by AASU amounts to invasion by intruders as per Ao Naga customary practice.
An air of tension and an uneasy calm has been enveloping Mokokchung ever since the news of the proposed march by the AASU, scheduled to take place today i.e. August 8, appeared in a vernacular newspaper. Observers of the whole scenario cannot be wrong when they opine that the AASU proposal had hurt the sentiments of the people of Mokokchung to a great extent. No untoward incident was reported till the filing of this news.
