Why the NSCN (IM) is a perennial problem – Defence News of India

SOURCE: INDIA TODAY

In April 24, Assam’s Dugudisa reserve forest echoed with gunfire from Tavor, Kalashnikov and M4 rifles. A joint team of Military Intelligence, Indian Army Special Forces, and Diphu police gunned down two hardcore terrorists of a new outfit called the Dimasa National Liberation Army (DNLA) in the state’s Karbi Anglong district. Located in central Assam, the district whose name literally translates to “hills of the Karbi people”, shares a border with the state of Nagaland. The operation had been launched by a joint team of the district police and the Indian Army. Security forces recovered an M4 carbine, a Type 56 assault rifle and 160 live rounds of ammunition from them.

A military official said the operation was planned ‘with precise intelligence and coordination’ and involved multiple stakeholders — the state police, military intelligence and the Indian Army’s Dimapur-based 3 Corps. Security forces had been monitoring the movements of this group over two months. Especially during the nationwide lockdown, which, a senior Assam Police official says, was being used by insurgent groups near the Bhutan-Assam-Arunachal Pradesh trijunction area to move their cadres around.

Army officials say this new terrorist group — a little over a year old — was being trained and equipped with arms and explosives to attack Special Forces units deployed in the Northeast. The rise of an insurgent group in the Northeast would not come as a surprise. There are dozens of active militant groups in seven of the eight states which make up Northeastern India. The region is home to India’s oldest insurgency — the Naga insurgent movement — which predates Independence.

The security situation however has improved in recent years. Between 2015 and 2019, government statistics reveal, security forces have killed over 339 terrorists, arrested 5,837 and recovered 2,570 weapons. The 223 insurgency-linked deaths in 2019 are the lowest recorded in a year since 1992.

On January 30 this year, various factions of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) surrendered after the government signed a Memorandum of Settlement with different Bodo groups. Lasting peace in the region is key to the Indian government’s Act East Policy unveiled in 2015 that calls for promoting connectivity with ASEAN through Maynmar and Thailand.

Militant groups operating there, however, have shown the ability to spring nasty surprises. On June 4, 2015 insurgents of the United Liberation Front of West South East Asia (UNLFW) ambushed an army convoy in Manipur’s Chandel district killing 18 Indian Army soldiers. This led to retaliatory raids by Indian forces into camps of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Khaplang faction) inside Myanmar.

Many of the insurgencies have since descended into extortion networks targeting local traders, businessmen and traders in what is euphemistically called ‘taxation’. Businessmen and government employees pay up to 20 per cent of their incomes and this extortion industry was estimated at Rs 100 crore per year over a decade ago.

NSCN (IM) are in bed with practically every insurgent group in the Northeast, they have birthed groups like the ULFA and NDFB, they are involved across several states like Arunachal Pradesh and Assam — that’s what makes them so dangerous
– Indian official involved in peace talks
The DNLA claimed to represent the Dimasa, the largest tribal group in the North Cachar Hills district. An influx of outsiders into tribal lands have been the source of discontent over decades and proved fertile ground for militant groups in the North East.

The North Cachar Hills district, now called Dima Hasao, is one of two districts within the state to be administered by autonomous councils. Several groups have claimed to represent the Dimasa, a tribe numbering 1.4 lakh according to the 2011 census, and who live in Assam and Nagaland. An outfit called the Dimasa National Security Force (DNSF) surrendered to security forces in 1995.

The latest avatar, the DNLA featured a self-styled chairman, Etiga Difusa alias Kharmindao Dimasa and Minom Phonglosa alias Gajaw Dimasa, the self-styled ‘army chief’. Their group, the Dimasa Peoples Supreme Council (DPSC) used cadres from a DNSF splinter group called the Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) which laid down arms in 2013.

The DNLA announced their arrival into the lucrative extortion industry of the Northeast with a grenade blast outside the home of a local resident in Karbi Anglong district during the Lok Sabha elections in April 2019. No one was killed or injured but the blast was the precursor to social media posts of armed DNLA cadres dressed in camouflage fatigues brandishing assault rifles.

Army officials say the DNLA resorted to extortion and kidnappings to generate money. Their cadres roamed the Intangki reserve forest. What mystified them was the ease with which the group operated in an area controlled by the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak-Muivah (NSCN-IM). The NSCN is the largest insurgent group in the North East and signed a ceasefire with the government of India in 1997. It operates out of its headquarters, Hebron Camp, in Peren district near Nagaland’s capital Dimapur also the base of the ‘Government of People’s Republic of Nagalim’.

Early clues to the DNLA’s origin came on 13 August 2019 with the arrest of the group’s ‘training instructor’ John Dimasa alias Master. Arrested in a joint army and Assam Police operation near Kherbari area in Assam, John revealed what security forces had long suspected — the DNLA was an NSCN(IM) proxy. The NSCN had raised, trained, armed and sheltered their cadres but did not do it for free. The Dimasas had to buy their weapons — Rs 1.5 lakh per AK-47 type rifle and between Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh for a US-made M16/M4 rifle.

“The NSCN (I-M) wanted to expand their extortion network in the Ingtangki reserve forest and Dimasa hills,” an army official explains. They were eyeing a cut from the illegal timber and beetle nut smuggling from Ingtangki reserve forest and Dima Hasao district. Using smaller groups to do this was clearly not a new stratagem.

A 2016 research paper by Brigadier Sushil Sharma for the Vivekananda International Foundation credits the NSCN for ‘finding a novel way of generating revenue from smaller underground surrogates’. The NSCN has in the past used groups like the DHD in Assam, Hmar People’s Convetion in Mizoram, Kanglie Yawol Kamba Lup (KYKL) and Kuki Revoutionary Army (KRA) in Manipurf for extortion. Each group claimed to represent a different tribal ethnicity in different states but operated under the NSCN which could thus spread their tentacles across the entire North East.

A second operation on January 28 this year, dealt another blow to the DNLA and revealed more information about the proxy group’s structure and connect with the NSCN (IM). The DNLA ‘military chief’ Minom Phonglosa was captured by a joint operation of Military Intelligence, Assam Rifles and Diphu police. DNLA cadres, Phonglosa revealed, had actually been trained in the Hebron camp.

A video in police custody shows Phonglosa talking about meeting a self styled Brigadier Chiphemi Shimrang of NSCN(IM) near the Hebron Camp in January this year. The ‘Brigadier’ asked Phonglosa to target security forces by using RDX, TNT and other high grade explosives. Army sources believe there are factions within the Nagas.

The DNLA is being supported by an NSCN faction including Phungting Shimrang, the former commander-in-chief of the Naga army and ‘Brigadier’ Shimrang. Both renegade NSCN leaders are believed to have escaped into Mynamar. ‘The renegade Shimrangs want the DNLA to carry out attacks on the Indian Army for which RDX and timers are being offered,’ an army officials said.

An official involved in peace talks calls the NSCN (IM) ‘the most dangerous Indian insurgent group’ in the country. “They are in bed with practically every insurgent group in the Northeast, they have birthed groups like the ULFA and NDFB, they are involved across several states like Arunachal Pradesh and Assam — that’s what makes them so dangerous.” The group has in the past had links with both the Pakistan’s ISI and China’s MSS. It has deep networks within the arms smuggling networks of Southeast Asia and demonstrated the ability to move massive weapons consignments into the Northeast.

Attempts to defeat them militarily have failed for over four decades. This is the reason the official believes the government must integrate them into the mainstream. This has yet to happen. On August 3, 2015 the government of India signed a framework agreement with the NSCN (IM) raising hopes of a negotiated settlement. On October 31, 2019, the two sides signed another agreement, short of a final deal. The final agreement has been held up pending major disagreements over a few issues. The NSCN (I-M) wants a separate flag, a constitution and a ‘Greater Nagalim’ which will include Nagas living in other states of the North-East. The government of India is loath to accede to this. The key to a lasting peace in the region would clearly be resolving this deadlock.