JOIN USThe National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday announced a reward of Rs 17 lakh for providing information on NSCN(K) chief S S Khaplang and another top leader of the outfit Niki Sumi.
The announcement came over their “involvement”in attacks on armed forces, including the June 4 ambush in Manipur that left 18 personnel dead.
While the NIA declared a reward of Rs 10 lakh on Sumi, the bounty on Khaplang is Rs 7 lakh.
“S S Khaplang is head of the NSCN (K) group and Niki Sumi is holding the charge of armed wing of the said group. They were closely associated with the decision to attack Assam Rifles personnel at Indira Gandhi Stadium, Kohima, on March 26, 2015, and subsequent string of attacks on armed forces including the attack on 6 Dogra Regiment convoy in Chandel district of Manipur on June 4, 2015, killing 18 Army personnel,” an NIA statement said.
Any person from public, giving any reliable information about the “whereabouts of these hard-core terrorists, leading to their arrest” will be rewarded. The identity of the informer will be kept secret, it added.
The agency’s move came even as latest intelligence reports said a group of 18 NSCN(K) rebels led by Chalai Pansa and Bopa Wangnow is currently camping in Lahu village in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh, bordering Nagaland.
The group is reportedly planning attacks against the security forces in retaliation to a recent operation by forces in Naklak in Nagaland, it said.
Indian security agencies had inputs that 75-year-old Khaplang was in a hospital in Myanmar, from where he hails, and later shifted to Taga, a place at a junction of India-Myanmar-China border.
Sumi, who coordinated the June 4 attack, belongs to Nagaland.
According to Indian agencies, Sumi planned the attack along with two other commanders of NSCN(K), Starson Lamkang and Neymlang, as well as one from the KYKL outfit. Sumi was the commander of the NSCN(K) camp in Ponue in Myanmar, which was targeted by the Indian Army on June 9 from the Nagaland side.
However, he escaped the attacks as he had left the camp before the Army reached there. Sumi, who changes his location every two weeks, works under the direct supervision of Khaplang.
Khaplang refused to extend the ceasefire agreement with India earlier this year and subsequently the NSCN(K) stepped up attacks against the Indian forces.
The NSCN(K) aims a ‘Nagalim’ by unifying all areas inhabited by the Nagas in North-east India and Myanmar.