The Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) will hold a sit-in protest in front of its demolished office premises here from 9 a.m. on Monday after expiry of 24-hour ultimatum served by the student body on the State government to nab the culprits responsible for vandalising its office building on wee hours of Saturday.
Addressing media persons in front of the vandalised office, NSF president Kegwayhun Tep said the decision to hold the sit-in protest was taken at a meeting on Sunday evening.
Although a verbal communication had been received from the investigating authorities with regard to the case, he pointed out that the federation was not satisfied with the progress of the investigation and therefore was going ahead with the protest.
He appealed to the federating and subordinate bodies as well as frontal organisations and all Nagas to extend support and cooperation to the federation.
Responding to a query on the report that the driver of an excavator was arrested along with four other individuals identified from the CCTV footages, Tep said that unless the investigating authorities presented the outcome in “black and white”, nothing could be said.
On Naga Club owning the responsibility for the demolition, Tep replied that NSF was aware of this, but had not made many decision since the case was now under investigation. He remarked until the final report of the probe was out, it would not be possible for him to conclusively say that the demolition was done by Naga Club.
On whether NSF was aware of the 45-day vacation notice served by Naga Club before the incident, he acknowledged that the federation had received the vacation notice, but that had expired long time back.
“We were informed by the deputy commissioner’s office that they (Naga Club) had written a letter saying they were going to organise a social work at the NSF office premises on May 13. However, with the intervention of the authorities, they did not come,” he claimed.
According to him, from that day onwards, everything had fallen silent and that NSF did not expect that a vandalisation would take place.
On the issue of NSF asking for a plot land to be transferred to its name, which was later denied after Naga Club asked the DC to not issue the same, Tep clarified that they had the recordsthat were already in public domain that the study body was the custodian of the heritage building and that it had always mentioned in its official documents that the building was a house of Naga people.
However, Tep observed that Naga people did not recognise Naga Club. Hence, if the Naga people did not recognise the organisation, he asserted that NSF too would not recognise it.
Regarding the duration of their protest, Tep said they were yet to decide on the issue, but clarified that they did not want to create inconvenience to the public due to this.