NSCNIM FACES CRITICISM FROM LOCALS OVER MORAL POLICING

GUWAHATI:Moral policing appears to have backfired on the IsakMuivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN-IM) in Manipur.

Off guerrilla warfare for 20 years since their outfit signed a ceasefire with Delhi in 1997, members of the NSCN-IM have been more into moral policing and ‘tax’ collection. The outcome, at times, has been confrontation with the very people it claims to represent.

The latest such incident happened on Thursday in Manipur’s Ukhrul district, home of most NSCN-IM leaders. District officials said the insurgents tortured Romeo Shally of Khamasom Khullen village to death after accusing him of raping a woman, who locals claimed was his girlfriend. Romeo died in the NSCN-IM’s Wung Tangkhul Region office. The villagers gathered outside the office and protested their kangaroo court justice but the insurgents inside opened fire resulting in the death of 25-year-old Chingripam Lungleng. Both Romeo and Chingripam were Manipur government employees. Some 500 people then attacked the outfit’s office with stones and also made an abortive bid to barge into it before the local authorities took control of the situation. On Friday, officials assisted the villagers in taking Romeo’s body out of the office but the locals refused to remove Chingripam’s body from the road until they get “justifiable explanation from the outfit’s leaders for killing the duo.

Shamim Ahmed Shah, the assistant commissioner of Ukhrul, has asked the district’s superintendent of police to book the culprits responsible for Romeo and Chingripam’s death.