The largest armed group of the Nagas that has signed a framework agreement with the centre has strongly denied allegations of supplying weapons and sending its cadre to Manipur to help a particular community, amid the ethnic violence between the hill-majority Kukis and the valley-majority Meiteis.
The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), or NSCN(IM), in a statement said a video being shared widely on social media showing a man alleging that NSCN(IM) sent its fighters to help the Meiteis in Manipur was a "scripted production by some mischievous agency".
In the video, the man alleged that 15 well-trained NSCN(IM) fighters are coming to Manipur to join the Meiteis in the fight against the Kukis. The Kuki-Zo-Chin tribes have started demanding a separate administration after violence broke out on May 3 during a protest against the Meiteis' demand for Scheduled Tribes (ST) status.
The NSCN(IM) said the man in the video has been identified as H Khosiivei Lovingson Roah, who joined "national service" in October last year and finished his basic military training earlier this year.
"He is a private in the Naga army posted at Thungbo Brigade. On August 7, 2023, he was granted medical leave for an ear infection and sent to Dimapur, but he went missing since then," the NSCN(IM) said in the statement.
NSCN(IM) senior leader HR Shimray in the statement said the video clip is "evidently a pre-planned and scripted production of some mischievous agency aiming at furthering the mayhem and also painting the NSCN in a bad light."
Ethnic violence between the Kukis and Meiteis broke out in Manipur on May 3
In July this year, six people including an inspector of the Nagaland Police, an armed group leader, and four others were arrested for stealing ammunition from the state police armoury. The ammunition was allegedly to be sent to neighbouring Manipur. One of the arrested people was a leader of the NSCN(IM).
The Nagas and Kukis had fought in the early 1990s over land. Hundreds were killed then.
The NSCN (IM), formed in 1980, is led by 85-year-old Thuingaleng Muivah; the other top leader of the group, Isak Chishi Swu, died at 87 of multi-organ failure. In 1997, the NSCN-IM entered into a truce with the central government for peace and since then has been continuing dialogue with the centre's emissaries.
In August 2015, the NSCN-IM signed a framework agreement with the government which Prime Minister Narendra Modi described as a "historic" step to usher in peace in the state.
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