Nagaland Home Minister Imkong L. Imchen maintained that the state government does not agree to declare the entire Nagaland as a disturbed area for invoking the Disturbed Areas Act to operationalize the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958.
Talking to Nagaland Post today, Imchen instead accused the Congress Government at the centre in Delhi for forcibly imposing the DAA against the wishes of the state government time and again. “The state government is a democratically elected and peoples’ representative government and it doesn’t agree to the imposition or extension of Disturb Area but they imposed on us”, said Imchen.
According to Imchen, before imposing the DAA, the centre sought the opinion of the state government on extension of the Act throughout the state but despite the state government’s refusal, the Centre still went ahead every time. He said the state government through the chief minister, Home Minister, Chief Secretary and Home Commissioner, had stoutly refused to give the nod. “The Congress Government at Delhi doesn’t listen to the state government or follow the court directive. Similarly, the Congress party in the state don’t understand and just mislead the people”, Imchen alleged.
It may be mentioned that on expiry of the earlier notification which had declared Nagaland State as “Disturbed Area” on June 30 last, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued another notification extending the same Disturbed Area tag for another year with effect from June 30 despite the state government’s opposition.
Earlier, the Ministry of Home Affairs wrote to the state government through the chief secretary seeking comment from the state government on further extension of declaration of the whole State of Nagaland as “Disturbed Area”.
The State Government wrote back conveying “that the State Government does not favor extension of the Notification Declaring Nagaland as “Disturbed Area” under Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 beyond 30-06-2011 in view of the ongoing Ceasefire with underground organizations and the overall improvement in the law and order situation in the State.”
Following the extension of ‘DA’ by the MHA, the opposition Congress through its media cell blamed the ruling DAN government for the extension of DA to the whole of Nagaland and questioned as to whether the state cabinet has approved the same. The NPCC also stated that the extension of DA implied that the Centre did not approve the NPF-led DAN Government repeated claim of peace in the state and trust the state government’s reports on law and order in the state.
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