Source: Hueiyen News Service
Imphal, April 24 2009:
Keeping behind the persisting threats on their life, Zemes from North-Cachar Hills taking refuge at Tousem area of Manipur casted their votes in their respective polling stations.
Elderly people taking refuge here left on Wednesday, a day head of polling in Assam to exercise their franchise leaving behind their children to the relief camps open for them at Tousem sub-division.
They are yet to return back till today, said Daniel, a resident of the Tousem when contacted by this correspondent.
About 100 children were left behind by the elders who convinced their children that they would come back after casting the vote.
70 of them are taking shelter at Tousem sub-divisional headquarters while 30 of them are at Mandeu villager.
They are likely to reach to their respective relief camps by late this evening, Daniel said as revealed by the children.
According to the children, their parents and guardians went to cast votes after the district authority of North Cachar Hills assured of their safety and security measures on their return to their original villages.
Following the killing of five Zeme villagers in the past couple of months by the Dimasa insurgent outfit DHD (J), ethnic tension have started brewing in the restive North Cachar Hills district in Assam.
Around 600 Zemes from various villages in the North Cachar Hill bordering with Tamenglong district of Manipur are taking shelter at various villages in the Tousem sub-division.
They are taking shelter at the relief camps opening at Mandue, Paklong, Pudum, nachukhong, Deikei etc.
The Zemes have recently decided to arm to defend themselves by setting up of barricades and bunkers along both sides of the roads leading to the villages.
Armed volunteers are keeping twenty four-hour vigil in these posts at least twenty-odd Zeme villages along the Kohima-Lieke interstate road and Mahur-Halflong.
These villages have been fortified themselves with bamboo fences and stakes and other indigenous methods of defense.
But those villagers taking refuge at Tousem area in Manipur are feeling fear and expressing unwilling to return to their villages citing that they don't want to back till government takes up full-proof security measures.
Dimasas' rebel group started killing innocent Zemeis since three months back allegedly opposing to their demand for homeland for the Dimasa people threatening the Zemei community of NC Hills, Assam to leave their place claiming that the land they inhabit does not belong to them.
Since then, Zemes started fleeing.
The Zemeis, it may be mentioned, have reportedly registered strong opposition over the move of the Dimasas to retain 80 percent of jobs in the region and the stir to regulate the Inner Line Permit system to non-Dimasa tribals of the region.
These had prompted the DHD to turn their guns against the Zemeis.