Imphal, June 30: Former chief minister W Nipamacha Singh today blasted the Union home ministry for disseminating wrong information involving him allegedly in order to cover up the Central government's blunders and save its skin.

He also asked the home ministry to immediately issue a clarification in this regard.

"I never expected that the (Union) home ministry would stoop so low to shift the blame of their blunders and save their skin", W Nipamacha Singh stated in a letter to the Union home secretary yesterday.

Nipamacha was reacting to a news report broadcast in the All India Radio on June 21 at 7.30 a.m.which stated that "a communiqu� from the home ministry, government of India, clarified that the extension of Indo-NSCN(IM) cease-fire to the Naga-inhabited areas of the neighboring states of Nagaland had been discussed by the Prime Minister with the then chief minister of Assam and Manipur, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta and W Nipamacha Singh respectively, in January, 2001".Nipamacha said the �clarification' was nothing but a blatant lie maintaining that he neither met the Prime Minister of India or the home minister nor discusses with them on any matter relating to the cease-fire extension in the month of January 2001."If the ministry of home affairs keeps the record straight and correctly, it would be seen that only on one occasion the Prime Minister met the chief ministers of the North Eastern states to discuss the issue of the extension of cease-fire beyond Nagaland.

The meeting was held on September 28, 2000, at the official residence of the Prime Minister in New Delhi and was attended by myself, PK Mahanta, chief minister of Assam; Mukut Mithi, chief minister of Arunachal Pradesh; Mowlong, chief minister of Meghalaya; Union home secretary Kamal Pande and PM's emissary K Padmanabhaiah.

I had vehemently opposed the suggestion of extending the boundary of cease-fire with NSCN(IM).

The other chief ministers supported my view and the meeting was concluded with the idea that the cease-fire would be confined within the state of Nagaland" Nipamacha challenged the Union home ministry.

"It will not be out of place to mention here again that the people of Manipur have been shouting repeatedly for the last many years not to extend the cease-fire to Manipur.

As the legitimate representative of the people, the state Assembly bad also adopted several resolutions decrying the move for the extension of cease-fire to Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur", he reminded the Union home secretary.

Furthering his attack, Nipamacha said as if the people of Manipur were nothing but mere dummies, the home minitry went ahead breaking its earlier stand that �the talk will be within the Constitutional framework and without any precondition from NSCN(IM)'s side'.

Expressing his deep mistrust of the Union home ministry in the wake of its disseminating a series of such false information regarding the cease-fire extension, Nipamacha wrote, "I still have doubts that the ministry of home affairs would issue any such communiqu� as broadcast over the radio".

However, he said, since it has already been broadcast, the MHA is now duty-bound to issue a clarification that there was no such meeting in January 2001 and that he had not been consulted over the issue of the extension of the cease-fire boundary beyond Nagaland.

In the letter, Nipamacha further reiterated his stand on territorial integrity of Manipur stating that "I still have not changed my stand.

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