HT Correspondent
DIMAPUR, May 1: Following a request from the inspector general of Assam Rifles GAR (North) Maj. Gen. Vikas Lakhera, the Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation (ENPO) has temporarily withdrawn its indefinite non-cooperation against Indian security forces. The organisation declared non-cooperation with the security forces following the Oting and Mon incidents in December 2021 in which 14 civilians were killed in a botched army operation.
ENPO president R Tsapikiu Sangtam and general secretary Manlang Phom, in a release, however, said as an apex organisation of the seven tribes of eastern Nagaland, the ENPO in all its wisdom and in true Christian spirit of forgiveness declared restoring the severed trust, relation and cooperation between the people of eastern Nagaland and the security forces, upholding the popular slogan of the Assam Rifles “friends to all, enemies to none”.
“Thus, ENPO, in the interest of mutual co-existence and respect, do hereby temporarily withdraw all forms of non-cooperation against Indian security forces in the presence of S Phangnon Konyak, MP, Rajya Sabha,” the release said.
The ENPO following the killing of 14 innocent civilians by the Indian security forces in Mon district on December 4 and 5 last year held a joint consultative meeting with all the eastern Nagaland civil societies in Longleng town on December 14 and unanimously resolved not to extend cooperation to the Indian security forces until its demand me met and justice delivered to the families of the victims in particular and the Nagas in general.
The joint consultative meeting demanded that the Indian security force personnel involved in the killings should be booked under relevant law and be brought under civil court for trial.
The media cell of the ENPO said the non-cooperation would be in the forms of abstaining from any national celebrations, or such activities, non-participation in Army civic programmes, non-attendance to any of their official invitations and disallowing any security forces recruitment drive within eastern Nagaland area.
