[caption id="attachment_210980" align="aligncenter" width="600"]
A portion of walls destroyed by miscreants in Supermarket area in Dimapur.[/caption]
Eastern Mirror Desk
Dimapur, Oct. 6: Just three weeks after the Ao Students’ Union Dimapur (ASUD) took up the initiative of converting a dumping site at Supermarket area in Dimapur into a public park with filtered drinking water facility, some miscreants destroyed the boundary wall and pillars on Friday night, disheartening the people behind the project.
Funded and implemented by ASUD, the project was taken up to commemorate the union’s Golden Jubilee year after taking due permission from the authorities.
The unfortunate incident happened on the night of October 5, according ASUD president, Lanutoshi Aier. When asked if the union was able to identify the miscreants, he said that they suspect the tenants in the area but not confirmed yet.
“We don’t have any witness, so we can’t blame them (tenants) at the moment. But there is a small dispute with the tenants. They don’t want the park to be set up there,” Aier said.
The whole area is said to be managed by Development Authority of Nagaland (DAN), government of Nagaland, and Aier said that the union had taken “necessary permission” to proceed with the project. He added that the union received a written letter from DAN approving the project in August.
Tenants in the area had earlier complained that space should be allotted for road and parking, following which the ASUD reserved a total of 26-and-a-half feet for the same -- with around nine-and-a-half feet on one side (adjacent to Post office), and around 17 feet on the other side of the compound, said Aier.
“What we discussed with the DAN was to give the footpath space only. But since tenant asked for it, we gave them,” he said. “We don’t understand why they (tenants) don’t want the park to be set up; when it is fully sponsored by us.”
He said that a meeting has been scheduled on Monday to solve the issue and that they would try their best to make the tenants understand and continue with the project peacefully.
The park will benefit the public as they can spend their leisure time once the construction work is completed, he concluded.
