Nagas withdraw Manipur blockade

By Subir Bhaumik
BBC News, Calcutta

The NSCN wants a greater Nagaland

Organisations representing Naga tribesmen have lifted a blockade of a national highway in the north-eastern Indian state of Manipur.

They were demanding that some parts of Manipur be integrated into the neighbouring state of Nagaland.

The federal government has rejected the idea saying it is opposed by Manipur's political parties.

The month-long blockade was lifted because it was causing hardship to people, a Naga spokesman said.

The leaders of the Naga organisations, however, said they would resume the blockade at any time unless the state and federal governts met their demands.

The president of the Naga Students Federation, Phusika Aomi, said Naga student and youth groups had decided to withdraw the blockade on the highway that enters Manipur from Nagaland and connects the remote state on the border with Burma to the rest of India.

Airlift

Mr Aomi said the blockade had caused untold misery to the people of Manipur.

He said the decision to withdraw the blockade was a temporary one and the considerations behind it were humanitarian and not political.

Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh and leaders of all other political parties and mass organisations in the state have welcomed the decision to call off the blockade.

But the announcement came on the same day that the state's governor SS Sidhu announced that an alternative highway connecting Manipur to the rest of India was working again after military engineers repaired some bridges on it.

Mr Sidhu said scores of trucks have reached Manipur's capital Imphal via Silchar in lower Assam.

Five days ago, the Indian government ordered an airlift of essential commodities such as foodstuffs, fuel and medicines to Manipur from neighbouring Assam in view of acute shortages in the state as a result of the blockade.

Atempts to break the blockade by the Manipur police misfired earlier this month when angry Nagas retaliated by burning down scores of government offices in four districts of Manipur that are dominated by Nagas.