GUWAHATI: After Manipur, Assam government has decided to raise objection to the Centre’s reported suggestion of granting ‘supra state body’ status to the Nagas settled across the northeastern region.
“The Assam government will take no steps which will affect the state’s geographical boundary,” government spokesman and minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters here on Friday.
“Some of Assam’s areas were under the occupation of Nagaland,” he said. The border dispute between Assam and Nagaland has been continuing for decades. “There are no Naga areas in Assam and only some Zeme Nagas in the North Cachhar Hills district. The few Nagas who stay in other parts of the state are ‘encroachers’ and not inhabitants,” Sarma said.
Zeme Naga community is one of the three sub-groups of the Zeliangrong tribe. The government would not take any step that might affect the hopes and aspirations of the people of Assam, Sarma said. (PTI)