Dimapur, July 18 (MExN): The United Naga Tribes Association on Border Areas (UNTABA) on Sunday proposed a chief ministerial level meeting to resolve the ongoing border issue between Nagaland and Assam.
In a press release issued by the association’s chairperson Hukavi T Yeputhomi and general secretary Imsumongba Pongen, the UNTABA said that the chief ministerial level meeting should conduct a comprehensive review of the Interim Agreements of 1972 and 1979 in order to “adopt appropriate step to de-notify the infamous ‘Dispute Area Belt’ (DAB) and remove the ‘DAB’ tag from all the ancestral and historical Naga lands bordering Assam.”
It also suggested that the Nagaland government should “adopt appropriate step to remove ‘neutral forces’ of Para-military forces (CRPF) and assume directly the Civil and Police Administrations in all these areas.”
The association pointed out that the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) had offered land to the Government of Assam to establish Battalion Headquarters and Training Centre for Special Forces and commandos of armed Assam Police at the Daldali Reserve Forest which is adjacent to Indisen, Aoyimkum and Rangapahar Army Cantonment area.
Such a move, it said, would create more disharmony and frictions between the various tribal communities living peacefully as neighbors between the two states. “The Naga people may be compelled to resist fiercely to such a move so as to maintain peaceful coexistence amongst the people, it said while claiming that the aforementioned areas “purely fall under the rightful ownership of the Naga people that were unilaterally transferred to the then Nowgong district for administrative convenience by the British India Government in the late 19th and early 20th century.”
While the Assam government has proposed to establish armed police battalions along the Inter-State boundary line, the Government of Nagaland’s proposal to deploy more personnel in few BOP (Border Observation Posts) “is too little too less which shows how serious the Government of the day is on the long pending border issue,” the association stated. In case the Nagaland government is unable to open new battalions then the existing battalions should be brought immediately along the border lines, it said.
The UNTABA also suggested that the state government persuade the Government of Assam to withdraw the ‘Civil Suit No. 2 of 1988’ from the Supreme Court of India so that the inter-state boundary of two states can be settled on historical basis for all times to come.
Further stating that the traditional and historical boundary between the two states is ‘Dhodhar Ali’ or ‘Naga Bund’ that runs from Golaghat to Upper Assam and from Golaghat downward runs from Daigurung river to Kaliani river then to Kopili river down to Barak river, the UNTABA asserted that “until an Inter State boundary solution is brought about on the basis of historical facts, there can never be permanent peace between the two states.”
