Talks between Centre and NSCN-IM on Wednesday over the proposed visit of T. Muivah to his native village in Manipur failed to make any headway with the government seeking more time and the rebel group remaining firm that the Naga leader will go ahead with his plan.
Union home secretary G.K. Pillai and Centre’s interlocutor for Naga talks R.S. Pande, accompanied by Nagaland chief minister Neiphiu Rio met Mr Muivah at Viswema village near the Nagaland-Manipur border, where he has been camping since May 5 enroute to Somdal village, and held a closed-door meeting to break the impasse.
Mr Pande told reporters after the one-and-a-half-hour meeting that they had conveyed to NSCN-IM and Naga civil society leaders the decisions taken by Manipur government on lifting of curfew from Mao Gate, the scene of recent violence, replacement of state forces with central paramilitary forces and ex-gratia for families of Mao Gate violence victims.
“We told them that Muivah should wait till a congenial atmosphere is created since he is covered under the Z-plus category security and we are working to create such an atmosphere,” Mr Pande said.
He said the Centre was monitoring the situation in both Nagaland and Manipur and would continue talks with the Manipur and Nagaland governments, NSCN-IM, civil societies and all other concerned to break the impasse.
The NSCN-IM, however, reaffirmed its resolve to go ahead with Mr Muivah’s visit, saying it would not wait long for the stalemate to end and accused the Centre of “double standards” over the present situation created “solely by the Manipur government”.
Coming out of the meeting, a visibly disappointed Mr Muivah simply said, “Hope, the government of India will resolve the present situation.”
Senior NSCN-IM functionary V.S. Atem told newsmen that the Centre should have applied its authority to prevail upon the Manipur government to break the impasse which, he said, was not the creation of Nagas but of the Manipur government. “We will not wait for long,” he asserted.
—PTI