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Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 343
The Morung Express “
www.morungexpress.com
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By Sandemo Ngullie
Vibi Yhokha
Dear Readers, We would like to remind you that Rejoinders to those statements/ news pieces that have not been originally published by the newspaper will not be carried either. This is in order to maintain impartiality on an issue. We seek your understanding and cooperation! The Morung Express
The Morung Express POLL QUESTIOn
Vote on www.morungexpress.com SMS your anSwer to 9862574165 Was Narendra Modi right not to give a ‘financial package’ to Nagaland state government? Yes
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NSCN (M) rejoinder to the 18th Assam Rifles Full text on page 4
PA to Yitachu responds DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 12 (MExN): The Personal Assistant to Parliamentary Secretary for School Education, Yitachu today responded to NPCC President, SI Jamir’s recent statement that the Parliamentary Secretary had refused to meet the latter with regard to allegations of 10 percent deduction from a bill to be paid to a contractor. While not responding to the allegation of the 10 per cent deduction, a press note from the Parliamentary Secretary’s PA informed that on December 10 at around 8:30am, the NPCC President had come to meet the Parliamentary Secretary at his official residence. According to the PA, Razuchi Chizo, he had informed the NPCC President that the Parliamentary Secretary was in a meeting with GHSS teachers’ office bearers. Thereafter, he informed that the NPCC President “left” and termed the allegation that the Parliamentary Secretary had refused to meet the former as “unfortunate.”
Pochury Hoho asks for evidence
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The Pochury Hoho has meanwhile asked the NPCC President to “substantiate” the allegation of 10 percent deduction “with concrete evidence”.” “If the allegation is proved and established with concrete evidences… we shall appreciate him as opposition law maker for detecting corruption…” it stated in a press note. However, if the allegation is “found to be false without supporting evidence,” the Pochury Hoho said that the NPCC President should tender a “public apology.”
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to live as an exile, and to be back home Kohima | December 12
Public Reminder
–Anton Chekhov
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Naga Human Rights Activist Luingam Luithui returns home after almost 20 years in exile
Persistent fellow! never allows any trucks to pass through without paying Christmas tax.
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reflections
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Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice
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“I still don’t know how to express the feeling of coming home. I feel like my old self again,” says Luingam, sharing on living as an exile and coming back to his ancestral land. Luingam, who is currently in Ukhrul on a tourist visa issued as a result of legal proceedings in the High Court of Delhi, is home after almost 20 years in exile. On November 29, the day he arrived in Ukhrul, around 3000 people gathered at Tangkhul Naga Long Ground to welcome him. In 1995, the human rights activist’s passport was impounded by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Since then, Luingam and his wife Peingam, have been living in exile in Canada. In 2003, he was allowed to visit his ailing mother for a short period on a special temporary passport issued by the Government of India. The Government of India had accused Luingam of assisting the NSCN (IM). “They know what I do, and what
I do cannot be classified as any criminal offence. They are unable to convince each other,” asserts Luingam. The first human rights violation case that Luingam Luithui clearly remembers was in the 1960s. As a young teenager, he recalls his elder brother leaving for Jessami village as part of a fact finding team to record atrocities committed by the Indian army in the village. He also remembers how his father never expected his older son to ever come home alive. His brother did return but later died in the 1990s due to complications after being tortured by the armed forces. After completing his Bachelor’s in Economics from St. Anthony’s Shillong, Luingam came home determined to become a farmer. He went to the extent of digging 2000 pits to plant apple trees in his village. At the same time he worked part time as a teacher in Model High School in Ukhrul for almost a year. In the meantime he also served as the President of the Tangkhul
Luingam Luithui
Students Union, setting the foundation for him to become a human rights activist. He was locked up in jail four or five times for protesting against the atrocities meted out under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). Fearing for his life, Luingam’s mother soon sent
him to Delhi. Luingam belonged to the first batch of the School for International Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Naga students were ‘very united’ then, he recalls. It was a historic time when strong social movements like Naxalism, and Jayaprakash Narayan’s call for
‘revolution,’ were emerging in India. Many young people his age had died, which he says helped him to think beyond his studies. Lui, as he is fondly called, was the first person from the North East to become a council member of JNU Students Union (JNUSU) where he served for two terms. He was also a part of Student Federation of India (SFI), involved in providing medical treatment to construction workers who lived under inhuman living conditions in Delhi. He is also one of the founding members of the Naga Peoples’ Movement for Human Rights (NPMHR), one of the first few movements in India to challenge the Constitution of India. It focused on violations of human rights, peace and cooperation through enforcement of constitutional rights. By 1978, NPMHR members started working from morning till night, typing affidavits and documenting human rights violations of the Nagas. In December 1978, the group travelled to Nagaland to seek advice from Naga elders. On December 15, a gathering was held in Kohima despite the imposition of 144 CrPC. Elders from villages close by walked all the way to Ko-
hima to support the movement. It was also the first time since the 1951 Plebiscite that Nagas came together and where victims of AFSPA shared their stories. Soon his room in JNU was raided and his documents taken away. When the Emergency was declared in India, Lui was arrested at dawn and charged as a Naga national worker. A close associate of Sitaram Yechury of the CPI (M), back in JNU, they would stage protests, write slogans and put up posters at night to defend the rights of the citizens of India. One of the most satisfying victories for Lui was the imposition of rule nisi by the Supreme Court of India. In 1982, NPMHR filed a letter petition before the Supreme Court against atrocities under AFSPA, which made the Court to direct the Indian armed forces not to use any religious or educational institutions in their operations. This allowed Nagas to truly celebrate Christmas after a very long time. That year, when he went home for Christmas, he remembered his mother telling him, “Your father would have been so proud of you.” Luingam is one of the founders of Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP),
one of the leading organizations for indigenous peoples in Asia. He is also a founding member of International Alliance of the Indigenous and Tribal People of the Tropical Forests. If there is one thing he regrets as an activist, it is anger. “I wished we had been less angry and dealt issues in a more dignified manner,” he reflects. “You could be burned out and be broken, and people couldn’t understand,” says Luingam, as he recalls the first few years living in exile in Canada where he and his wife survived through his wife’s job as a salesperson. His sister Chon Chon and her husband sent money every alternate month, and his brother was forced to sell their ancestral land. It was only in 2011 that he found the courage to start working again. He joined a catering company where he works 12 hours, cleaning more than 38 rooms per day. All said and done it will be okay, says an optimistic Luingam, whose contribution to the Nagas and to indigenous groups in India cannot be overlooked. And a nation that strips the identity of its own citizen for defending the rights of the rest needs to question itself.
nPcc questions Agri Minister
DIMAPUR, DECEMBER 12 (MExN): The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) today reaffirmed its call for the resignation of Minister for Agriculture, Dr Benjongliba on the account of alleged misappropriation of money during his tenure as Mission Director, Horticulture Technology Mission – North East (HTM-NE). Referring to a particular account from the Kohima branch of a reputed private bank, the NPCC demanded that the Minister clarify on whether he operated that particular account after he demitted office on January 10, 2013. The NPCC further questioned whether he had withdrawn Rs 30 lakhs on January 17, 2013; Rs 15 lakhs on January 18, 2013 and Rs 15 lakhs on January 19, 2013, all via
cheques from that account. It also asked the Minister to clarify on “how he deposited cash amounting to Rs. 70,01,662 and Rs. 52,22,626 on January 11, 2013 and to indicate source of cash received and deposited.” Revealing that cheques had been issued to 14 individuals from January 11 to January 28, 2013, after the Minister demitted office on January 10, 2013; the NPCC demanded that the beneficiaries be revealed. It further informed that the Director of Income Tax (Intelligence) from Guwahati had enquired about high value cash transaction from the said account addressed to the Mission Director Horticulture on October 30,2013. In this, the NPCC question “what prompted” the Minister to “give reply to the Director of
Income Tax (Intelligence) when he was already a Parliamentary Secretary on November 18, 2013.” The NPCC revealed that the present Director for Horticulture, in her letter to the Commissioner & Secretary Horticulture on November 7, 2013 on the high value cash transaction, had stated that “she was not aware” about the account, “as the same was never communicated to her during/after taking charge of both the offices (Mission Director & Director).” The Horticulture department has also denied having any knowledge about the account in an RTI reply furnished by Dr RE Lotha, Deputy Director & PIO, it informed. As such, the NPCC has called for a probe into who opened and operated the said bank account.
‘State should do more to provide quality road’ Bar Association censures road conditions
KOHIMA, DECEMBER 12 (MExN): The High Court Bar Association, Kohima today expressed concern at the “deplorable condition” of the roads in Nagaland state, with particular reference to National Highway 29. A press statement from the President of the association, Taka Masa and Secretary, A Zhimomi while acknowledging the “handicaps currently faced” by the authorities, however said that the state should also do more for providing quality road connectivity. Traversing roads maintained by the state, it lamented, has become an “excruciating experience” and requested the state to initiate remedial action. Over the years, the Bar lamented, that construction and maintenance of roads in Nagaland have been “cosmetic” and that the “lack of quality control and deviation from specifications to enhance profits at the cost of the exchequer and the well being of the people invites both civil and criminal consequences.” It further asserted that culpability lies with the concerned authorities as well as the contractors. It was informed that the Bar submitted a “notice” dated August 8, 2014 to authorities both at the centre as well as the state. A reply was received from Project Sewak through a letter dated September 3, 2014.
the National Highway have been procured from “reputed contractors and the bitumen from oil companies.” The standards of construction, it assured, have been uniform over the entire section, as per specification. It pointed out that factors affecting the road condition rather include quarrying aside the road, excavation of bed materials from streams and nullahs, rampant cutting and terracing of uphill slopes, choking of drains with garbage and washing of vehicles on the roads. The letter further said that drainages and culverts are present at all required places, however, these drains, especially in built up areas, quarry locations and at places where approach roads have been cut, keep getting blocked. It assured that the task force has taken up measures to address this. Project Sewak then revealed the damage caused by indiscriminate excavation of land along the highway, which has been intimated to the civil administration. However, it informed that no action has been taken. It further stated that a majority of the sinking areas are due to manmade reasons like excavation activities, movement of overloaded vehicles etc. The task force, it further assured has involved the expertise of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), used new technologies and involved the local populaProject Sewak responds The response from Project Sewak clar- tion and civil administration to arrest the ified that all materials used on works on road condition.
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