DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 1 (MExN): The Zeliangrong Youth Organisation Nagaland (ZYON) today issued a rejoinder to the press release of the Western Sumi Youth Front (WSYF) published on November 27.
The WSYF has “finally admitted to the fact and contention of the Zeliangrong people, that the original inhabitants of the erstwhile Kiyevi village had shifted in 1978 and established Kiyeto Village,” it maintained.
“Such honest admittance of the truths and acceptance of one’s wrong doing would go a long way towards living cordially as brothers,” it said, further noting that it is now the “onus” of the “WSYF to speak and \counsel the renegades” to discontinue with their “claims to something which is purely not theirs to own.”
On the claim that the Western Sumis acquired permission from the British to establish a village, the ZYON asked them to “get the facts from elders and descendants of the original Kiyevi villagers.”
Accordingly, it asked whether they can deny that the fact “Kiyevi and Lotavi came to Puiteing, then GB of Lamhai, and sought permission from Lamhai village for establishment of the erstwhile Kiyevi Village” and “in celebration of the mutual agreement to allow Kiyevi to establish a village with clear boundary demarcation, a pig was slaughtered for a feast as is customary in the Zeliangrong tradition”
“Accepting and admitting this fact also will once and for all, put to rest this encroachment issue,” the ZYON claimed.
It further repudiated the allegation that “inhabitants of Lamhainamdi village are all from Manipur State” and stated that it was “just an imaginary attempt to get sympathy.
The union further stated that it is a fact that Ntangki National Park is “now the common property of the Nagas, however Beisumpui village donated the land for the same and was the original landowner.”
The National Park is not in ‘No Man’s Land’ but it is within the ownership of the Beisumpui village, it added. “Your interpretation that Beisumpuikam Village after shifting to the present location is still living in the old village is totally wrong and which can be confirmed from Forest department,” the ZYON said.
After the establishment of Beisumpuikam Village with due permission from Beisumpui village the landowner of Ntangki National Park, the ZYON said that “many land grabbers are frequently attempting to establish villages inside the Ntangki NP.”
“As such a decision was taken that as rightful landowner village, in collaboration with the Forest department, we had to check the rampant encroachment of the National Park and so we shifted to the vicinity of the Park, the present location, after due agreement with the Government,” the ZYON said.
According to the union, as per land exchange agreement, the land of the old settlement is with the forest department and the question of reestablishment of in the village in the old site does not arise.
It meanwhile asserted that the Zeliangrong people “will not part what was and is and will be rightfully ours to keep.”
