Cong. team not allowed to go to Nagaland

Members of the delegation were detained after landing at eastern Assam’s Jorhat airport

A Congress delegation was on Wednesday barred from going to Nagaland’s Mon district where 14 civilians were killed in a botched ambush by an elite force of the Army.

The delegation comprising Lok Sabha member Gaurav Gogoi, AICC general secretary in-charge of Assam Jitendra Singh and his Nagaland counterpart Ajoy Kumar was detained after landing at the Jorhat airport in eastern Assam, the State Congress unit said.

“The trio is sitting in protest against the illegal detention at Jorhat and for preventing them from travelling to Mon to meet the families of the victims,” Congress leader Bobbeeta Sharma said.

The AICC had on December 6 constituted the delegation to meet the families of the victims and submit a report to party chief Sonia Gandhi within a week.

The Jorhat district authorities said the movement of civilians and others from Assam to Nagaland has been restricted by the Nagaland Government due to the prevailing law-and-order situation there.

“We are satisfied that there are sufficient grounds to prohibit the further movement of the Congress delegation considering the present sensitive situation on the Assam-Nagaland border areas,” an order by the district administration said.