Aizawl: Mizoram government will not resume talks with Hmar People`s Convention (D) `merely` because of the Centre`s pressure to do so, state Home minister R Lalzirliana said on Sunday.
Lalzirliana told a news agency here that the Union Home Ministry had recently sent a letter to state chief secretary Van Hela Pachuau instructing the state government to resume negotiations with HPC-D.
"How could the Centre ask us to talk to the outfit now
when the Union Home Ministry, a few months back, had itself
asked state governments to deal with the insurgent outfits as
dacoits? " he asked.
The Centre had signed Suspension of Operation (SoO)
agreement with several north east ultra groups, including
HPC-D on the condition that their cadres would be confined
within designated camps and that they would deposit their arms
with the security forces.
The HPC-D cadres had not only not remained in the
designated camps but had also never deposited their arms and
continued to indulge in violent and illegal activities,
including extortion from across the Manipur border, he said.
"Even if we want to comply with the Union Home
Ministry`s diktat, it would be difficult to decide to which
faction of the outfit we would engage in the parleys as it now
has two of them," he said.
The Mizoram government and HPC-D had signed a pact on
SoO to last for six months on November 11, 2010 after
concluding their peace talks.
The pact was, however, short lived as several
differences cropped up between the two sides and the state
government officially announced in July last year that it
would not resume talks with the outfit as the Centre had
already initiated talks with the group.
PTI
