Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 28 (EMN): A hostile crowd greeted the arrival of Minister for Health and Family Welfare S Pangnyu Phom in Tuensang town on Thursday in the aftermath of Chennai returnees bound for Tuensang district being released from Kohima quarantine centres before their results were confirmed.
On Thursday morning, four of them were confirmed Covid-19 positive.
This triggered a public protest, led by the Confederation of Chang Students’ Union (CCSU), even as Phom reached Tuensang with the advisor for IPR, SCERT and Village Guards, Toshi Wungtung; and the principal director for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Vizolie Suokhrie.
They were there to meet with the Tuensang District Task Force for Covid-19 and civil society organisations. The crowd greeted them with placards that read: “Don’t appease us with Marie biscuits and a glass of water”; “Shift the capital to Tuensang. We can shoulder every citizen of Nagaland”, among others.
An official of the CCSU official told Eastern Mirror over the phone that the union has asked the visiting officials to provide the total figure of money spent on buying biscuits and water for the Tuensang returnees so that it can refund the money.
He also informed that during the meeting, the visiting officials were given ‘Marie biscuits and water to return them to the government’.
Ventilator provided
The CCSU leader said that the state government provided one ventilator for the Covid-19 hospital in Tuensang and assured to send two TrueNat machines by next week. Chang apex bodies will also purchase one, he added.
“The minister also assured of a bio-safety level (BSL) lab but did not mention if it was 2 or 3. But we want BSL-3 in Tuensang, with the increasing number of positive cases, at the earliest or else the government will face grave agitation (sic) by the Tuensang bodies,” he said.
The president of Chang Khulei Setshang (CKS), Nungsanglemba Chang was stated to have lamented on the “colossal damage done by the government in such an hour” during the meeting.
He appealed to the government to immediately install a BSL-3 lab in Tuensang.
20 legislators asked to resign
The CKS president was also stated to have appealed to the 20 legislators from eastern Nagaland districts to resign on moral ground, after the ‘wrong done to the people of eastern Nagaland’.
He also enquired on “what ground the non-feasibility of installation of BSL-3 is now feasible?”; and questioned if this was ‘just an appeasement’.
The various tribal bodies of Tuensang district were stated to have questioned ‘how the lapses had occurred, creating such a disastrous mess in Tuensang?’
They rued that every preventive measure employed by the stakeholders in the district have now been rendered null and void by the ‘blunder’.