Kohima, March 4: The tripartite meeting between the representatives of the Centre, ceasefire monitoring group, and the NSCN (Isak-Muivah) today discussed the “death threat” issued to high-ranking officials of the Nagaland government by some top functionaries of NSCN factions.

The meeting, chaired by Lt Gen. (retd) Mandhata Singh and held at Chumukedima near Dimapur, discussed the recent “death threat” issued to chief secretary Lalhuma and two other officials.

The Nagaland government has not yet disclosed which faction of the NSCN issued the death threat.

After the Centre tabled the issue at today’s meeting, NSCN officials assured to “look into the matter”.

The NSCN functionaries have warned the three state officials not to probe the bogus appointments of teachers in primary schools.

The state government had recently constituted a special investigation team (SIT) to investigate the bogus appointments.

The government said over a thousand teachers had been appointed in 2007-08, mostly by militants, in some cases in connivance with government officials.

After the announcement of the formation of the SIT, the NSCN top functionaries issued a “death threat” to the state officials. However, the government said it would not cow down to the threat of the militants.

A few years ago, a similar threat was issued to the SIT team by the Khaplang faction of the NSCN for probing the bogus appointments of over 500 teachers.

After the meeting, Brig. Phungthing Shimrang, the convenor of the ceasefire monitoring cell of the NSCN (I-M), told this correspondent that the group had assured the Centre that it would look into the matter. “We have assured them to look into the matter,” he said.

Because of the appointment of illegal teachers, the school education department has incurred a loss of over Rs 20 crore during 2008 as it had to pay the salaries of the teachers.

The meeting also deliberated on why the truce mechanism had not worked.

The NSCN (I-M) representatives said the meeting agreed to strengthen the ceasefire mechanism to check any violation of the ground rules.

Brig. Shimrang said both sides should abide by the ground rules. He said security forces should also abide by the ceasefire mechanism.

The outfit also flayed the Peace Affairs Committee of the state government for urging the Centre to implement the “standard operating procedures” in totality.