The Rengma Nagas in Assamhave written to Union HomeMinister Amit Shah demand-ing an autonomous districtcouncil amid a decision bythe Central and the State go-vernments to upgrade theKarbi Anglong AutonomousCouncil (KAAC) into a terri-torial council.

The Rengma Naga Peo-ples’ Council (RNPC), a regis-tered body, said in the mem-orandum that the Rengmaswere the fi��rst tribal people inAssam to have encounteredthe British in 1839, but theexisting Rengma Hills waseliminated from the politicalmap of the State and re-placed with that of MikirHills (now Karbi Anglong) in1951.

Narrating its history, thecouncil said that during theBurmese invasions of Assamin 1816 and 1819, it was theRengmas who gave shelter tothe Ahom refugees.

The petition said that theRengma Hills was parti-tioned in 1963 between As-

sam and Nagaland at thetime of creation of NagalandState and the Karbis, whowere known as Mikirs till1976, were the indigeneoustribal people of Mikir Hills.

“Thus, the Rengma Hillsand Mikir Hills were two sep-arate entities till 1951. Karbis

have no history in the Reng-ma Hills. People who arepresently living in RengmaHills are from Assam, Aruna-chal Pradesh and Meghalaya.They speak diff��erent dialectsand do not know Karbi lan-guage of Karbi Anglong,” thememorandum said.

RNPC president K. Solo-mon Rengma told The Hinduthat the government was onthe verge of taking a decisionwithout taking them onboard and thus they hadwritten to Mr. Shah andChief Minister Himanta Bis-wa Sarma.

“How can they do this?We have been writing tothem for many years. TheKAAC population is around12 lakh and the Karbis consti-tute only 3 lakh, the remain-ing are non-Karbis, including

the Rengma Nagas, whosepopulation is around22,000. We are also de-manding a separate legisla-tive seat for Rengmas,” hesaid.

The National SocialistCouncil of Nagaland or NSCN(Isak-Muivah), which is intalks with the Centre for apeace deal, said in a state-ment on Monday that theRengma issue was one of theimportant agendas of the“Indo-Naga political talks”and no authority should gofar enough to override theirinterests.

More than 3,000 RengmaNagas were forced to relo-cate to relief camps in 2013after several people werekilled in a series of attacksfollowing a call given by aKarbi insurgent group.

Rengma Nagas demand autonomous council They write to Union Home Minister and Assam Chief Minister, asking for their voices to be heardVijaita SinghNew Delhi

Long fi��ght: The Rengma Naga community has been seekingan automous council for many years now. * FILE PHOTO