Nagaland govt asks staff to declare if kin tied to rebels

GUWAHATI: The Nagaland government has asked all state employees to inform if they had any family member connected to underground groups and furnish details by August 7.
This comes close on the heels of governor R N Ravi’s letter to chief minister Neiphiu Rio, expressing his unhappiness over “rampant extortion by armed gangs who are running a parallel government.”
“All administrative heads of departments and all heads of departments are directed to obtain information in the self-declaration form from all government servants under his/her department/office regarding family members and relatives in underground organisations and submit to the home department political branch latest by August 7 positively,” Nagaland chief secretary Temjen Toy said in a letter.
The self-declaration form requires all state government employees to give replies to five queries — “is there any family member or close relative a member of a Naga underground organisation, nature of relationship with the government employee, name of underground organisation of which he/she is a member, position/rank presently held in the UG organization …”
The BJP-backed Nagaland government had rejected Ravi’s assessment that the law and order situation in the state is “grim” and has “collapsed” by countering that his findings “did not appear to be factual.”