Parliamentary Secretary Dr Benjongliba urges peaceful coexistence between Rankham and Yajang-C village
DIMAPUR, JANUARY 5 (MExN): In a commendable effort to broker peaceful co-existence, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture & Chairman NSAMB, Dr Benjongliba Aier convened a joint peace sitting comprising of members from Border Peace Coordination Committee (Assam-Nagaland), key members of Gabharoo festival organizing committee, representatives from Rankham village area, Assam and council members of Yajang-C village on Tuesday.
The peace sitting, which was held at Yajang-C village, the ancestral village of Dr Benjongliba comes in the backdrop of skirmish erupting between the villagers of Rankham (under 101-Mariani Assembly Constituency, Assam) and Yajang-C (under 30-Alongtaki Assembly Constituency, Nagaland), with the recent one occurring in April 2015 last, a press statement from BPCC (A-N) president BP Bora stated.
Since then, both States had deployed security forces to curb the situation. Though situation remains normal at the moment, public interactions amongst the two villages have been missing.
Dr. Benjongliba in his address called upon the public representatives in attendance to mend the gap and at the same time extolled the traditional age-old good neighborly relation that existed between the Nagas and Assamese and particularly the people of Yajang and Rankham village.
Recalling his childhood days, Dr Benjongliba, in all nostalgia, said there used to be a weekly market at Rankham which people from his village depended highly for their everyday needs. The village produce from Yajang was also traded at this market and people from both the villagers respected each other and there was no border tension, he reminisced. “Now-a-days, people from the plains sector encourage rich people from the towns and cities to do agriculture cropping in the border belt and thus the traditional lands belonging to Nagas are being encroached upon. This is the root cause for igniting trouble leading to misunderstanding and mistrust amongst the peace loving border people,” the Nagaland parliamentary secretary for agriculture rued.
BPCC (A-N) president BP Bora and Indreswar Gogoi, a prominent personality and teacher from Rankham locality in their speech thanked the MLA of Alongtaki constituency for coming forward to build peace in the locality. Gogoi also espoused hope of having a joint peace coordination meeting involving both Rankham and Yajang-C villagers. BPCC (A-N) vice president Imsu Jamir reminded the gathering that without the eagerness of the people of both the parties to come together, peace cannot be imposed by the BPCC.
“This is a very remarkable occasion because in April last year when the situation arose in the Rankham-Yajang-C sector, public living there did not give a chance to the BPCC (A-N) to mediate. Rather they were sway by different pressures including political angles and therefore BPCC (A-N) was left with not much scope for peace coordination,” Imsu said.
Coordinator of the BPCC (A-N) Temsu Wathi explained the overall situation prevailing in the entire border belt with an emphasis for coordinated living with goodwill and mutual trust.
“Though the State governments are in litigating mode, however it is the people who will and shall live in these areas forever. Therefore the people living in border locations need to embrace each other and create a sense of neighbourly brotherhood by extending equal respect and dignity in order to create peaceful coexistence,” he maintained.
The meeting ended with a resolution that the proposed joint peace meeting between Rankham and Yajang villagers would be placed before Magh Bihu i.e. January 14, 2016 where the organizers of the Gabharoo Festivity-2016 has been asked to coordinate along with the BPCC(A-N) team.
