Dimapur, March 30 (MExN): The civil society organisations of Peren district have issued a clarification stating that the CSOs “did not and do not intend to malign the whole Sumi community,” in the incident where three persons from the Zeliang community were killed at Lamhainamdi on March 22.
In a press release received on Tuesday, the presidents of the Zeliangrong Baudi Nagaland and Nagaland Zeliang People Organization stated that following the incident, “there has been comments and write ups in social media against Sumi community,” that has necessitated the CSOs to issue the clarification to the Sumi leaders and the Nagas in general, “to clear where each one stands for the future of Nagas as a family.” The incident, it said, “Has all along been the issue between landowner Lamhai Village and the land encroachers.”
The release also stated that the perpetrators had also reportedly left behind four handwritten notes claiming ancestral ownership of land and said that the notes were “either the declaration or the proposition by the perpetrators the explicit involvement or the tacit proposal to involve the whole Sumi Community into the program of heinous acts.”
In this regard, the release recounted its meetings in September 25, 2020 and February 10, 2021 at Jalukie and Thahekhu respectively, for ‘peaceful settlement of the unresolved land issues’ at the CSO level with the Western Sumi Hoho. “Our proposition all along had been to let the Sumi brothers settled in the already established settlements only with due acknowledgement of landownership as per the Naga customs and traditions which shall built the bond of trust for peaceful coexistence,” it stated. However, it lamented that its proposition, “not withstanding historical rights, was flatly rejected by the settlers on the February 10, 2021 sitting at Thahekhu, rather advising the Zeliangs never to mention the ancestral history again.”
“The question of ancestral ownership of the land where they are claiming as ‘Aqahuto’ has no ambiguity. The Angami Naga is still alive to stand witness to our shared history,” it added.
It also called on the Sumi community to ponder on whether “few individuals with vested interest for creation of Aqahuto are abusing the leaderships of the Naga political movement,” to continue their program of annihilating unarmed civilians with Naga property.
“It should be explained to the whole Nagas and the world that the community is not with the perpetrators and their program of barbarian acts by identifying the culprits and handing them over to the law,” it asserted while underscoring that the “Zeliangrong people have no binding interest beyond justice to the unjust act by cadres of Naga Political Groups belonging to Sumi Naga tribe.”
