Lamka, April 28: Saying the blood and land of the Hmars will remain intact, the Hmar People's Convention (D) today claimed responsibility on the attack of machineries used by NEEPCO, the organization entrusted for constructing Tipaimukh Dam.

According to unconfirmed reports, an armed group has on Saturday wrecked the foundation stone of Tipaimukh Dam and some machinery used by NEEPCO � the implementing agency.

The foundation stone was laid by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, during his last visit to the State.

A statement issued by Lalthlunglien Lungtau, Commander HPC(D) Barak Valley today said the ongoing drilling work at the site of the proposed Tipaimukh Multipurpose Project has been going against the interest of the Tipaimukh Hmar people as it involved their land, right and dignity.

'The recent destruction of the drilling machine in Tipaimukh on 25-04-2008 was a compelled and necessary act in the interest of safeguarding our ancestral land and our people from destructive intervention made by the government of Manipur and NEEPCO in pursuit of imposing a mega-dam,' says the release which also claimed that Tipaimukh Hmars were further marginalized by the project.

'Our people have been living in the same land that we occupy much before the birth of India and Manipur.

It will continue to be so.

The government of Manipur or NEEPCO have no right to ignore the history of our existence in Tipaimukh, where our people still exists as human beings with their fundamental citizenship rights,' it adds.

The HPC (D) also accused the State Govt as well as NEEPCO of pushing the proposed project without consulting the people who will be affected.

They in addition accused Sumant Singh DC/CCpur of dictating the first public hearing on 31 March, 2008 .

'There was no sense of public in it,' said the statement which claimed that villages of Tipaimukh were not about the dictated 'public hearing.' It also called for avoiding any such blunder further, 'when it involves peoples' land and lives'.

Assert that it shall never allow discriminative intervention at the cost of it people and their land � which they have treasured with blood, culture, identity, history and dignity, the HPC (D) statement said, 'Our blood and our land will remain intact, we will live for our land and with our blood.

No forces will take them away from our possession.

Following the HPC (D) attack, official and engineers of NEEPCO were said to have taken shelter in the neighbouring locality of Silchar in Assam and in parts of Mizoram.

Meanwhile KSO, Churachandpur has extended it dateline on the government for resuming the proposed mini-secretariat project for another three days.

If no positive response is sought within three days, 'we will be impelled to propagate our grievances in the form of all democratic means of agitation,' it says.

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