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North East - Naga issue : NSCN-IM threat to explode bombs in New Delhi |
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The Naga peace process which reached the climax after its first round of Delhi talks during the Vajpayee Government giving rise to hopes of an early solution to the half-a-century old issue, now appears to have run into rough weather again with NSCN(IM) articulating that “the Government would only pay heed to their demands if bombs exploded in New Delhi.”
In a special report, an English daily, The Tribune, said the government’s stonewalling has even put the seven-year-old Naga ceasefire in jeopardy. Quoting top-level sources, the daily said it is time the government paid attention to the political demands of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) otherwise the situation may reach the boiling point.
Some pointers to the gravity of the situation are the fact that for the first time during the last round of negotiations in Amsterdam between the NSCN and the government’s interlocutor, a clearly frustrated T.H. Muivah is said to have threatened that the government would only pay heed to their demands if bombs exploded in New Delhi. That this is not an idle threat is borne out by the 5,000 motivated and trained NSCN-IM cadres operating in the North-East.
Says a top government official: With nearly 75 per cent of the Army pre-occupied in Jammu and Kashmir, can we afford to open another front in the North-East? The government has become complacent and forgotten the fact that the negotiations were started only after a comprehensive threat assessment exercise was carried out and the NSCN was found to be a grave threat.
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