Principal Correspondent
KOHIMA, JULY 17
CONGRESS Legislature Party (CLP) leader Tokheho Yepthomi today asked the Government of Nagaland to rethink its position and stand firm before the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India (GoI) for deployment of Nagaland police personnel in Maoists infected areas.
Revealing that MHA has once again asked the state to send two Battalions of NAP (IR) to Chhattisgarh to curb the menace of Maoists activities, Yepthomi said Nagaland has already committed a battalion plus strength of armed police for policing duties in Delhi while the 11th IRB presently deployed in Purulia, West Bengal to combat Naxalites will be reverting back with another IR Battalion earmarked to relive them in a month’s time.
“The people of the state are still aware about the loss of our brave IR personnel in Chhattisgarh a few years back when 20 died in various encounters with the Maoists and 12 died of sickness during the entire period of deployment leaving behind their wife’s as widows, children’s as orphans and parents without their brave son,” he said.
Moreover, with the ongoing ceasefire in the state that has entered the 17th year, he said that the presence of armed forces in the state has been drastically reduced and the job of maintaining law and order duties lies with these state armed police battalions who have been greatly stretched in their line of duty.
Therefore, the CLP leader pleaded that “the state government will have to rethink its position and stand firm before MHA when it is ordered to deploy our brave police personnel in Maoists infected areas”.
He further expressed the GoI during the 1950s deployed thousands of armed forces to crush the Naga undergrounds but has now reversed its earlier stance by not using the armed forces against the Maoists/Naxalites in various parts of the country.
It must be remembered that Nagaland is much smaller state than Chhattisgarh in terms of area and population, he said adding that Chhattisgarh has 11 MPs whereas Nagaland has only one MP.
“In true logical sense, Chhattisgarh should be able to raise enough armed police forces to combat the Maoists rather than request MHA for deployment of Nagaland IRBs when Nagaland itself needs the services of these IRBs for its own internal law and order duties,” he added.
Expressing that performing policing duties in Delhi will be a good exposure for the state’s police forces and requisitioning IRBs for large scale deployment outside the state in times of external disturbances by the Union Government will be obligatory for the state government to comply, Yepthomi however said “it may not be proper for the state government to send out 4-5 battalions of Nagaland armed police forces at one go just to please the government in Delhi in the hope of extracting some logical support at the cost of our brave police personnel’s serving the interests of other states”.
