Kohima, July 4: The Zeliangrong Volunteers for Forest and Environmental Protection has claimed responsibility for the June 30 attack on the United Naga village inside Intanki National Park that killed two persons and injured two.

Commander of the volunteers D. Newmai, while claiming responsibility for the attack, set a seven-day deadline for the state government to evict encroachers from the park and warned of further action if the government failed to comply.

In a statement issued today, the outfit said though the Zeliangrong people had submitted several petitions and served several ultimatums to the government to evict encroachers from the forest, it had taken no action. It said the government was to blame for the incident.

The volunteers said they had evicted encroachers four times from the national park this year, but never had any intention of shedding blood. “The June 30 bloodshed was inevitable as the encroachers started firing from sophisticated weapons, forcing the volunteers to retaliate in self-defence, leading to the death of two encroachers and injury to others,” the statement said.

On the government’s decision to grant ex gratia to those killed, it said, “It is surprising that the state government has declared ex gratia to the encroachers while not even the slightest attention was paid to villagers of Beisumpuikam, who were attacked by the encroachers in their paddy field on March 28, critically injuring four villagers. This action of the government is directly violating the consultative meeting resolution for protection of the national park in the interest of the entire Naga community.”

The Western Sumi Hoho has set a 15-day deadline for the government to arrest the attackers. It has also rejected the ex gratia and the government’s decision to institute a high-level inquiry committee to probe the incident.

Intanki, located 46km from Dimapur, was declared a reserve forest in 1923, a wildlife sanctuary in 1975 and an elephant reserve in 2005.

The park, which originally covered 203 square km, has lost around 25 per cent of the area to encroachers since 1984.

“About 5,000 hectares (25 per cent) has been encroached,” conservator of forest (bio and wildlife) K. Hocto Sema said.

The director of the park, Blooming Ao, and the wildlife warden of Dimapur wildlife division, Zhotoho Angami, said the park was free from encroachment till 1983 but the first batch of encroachers (Zeliangrong tribe) settled in Beisumpuikam village in 1984. They added that the village was inaugurated by the then minister Bangdi Iheilung on January 4, 1992, and still received development funds from the government.

The forest department has also been seeking a government directive to completely evict the village, as partial eviction was neither possible nor effective.

The NSCN (I-M) had also twice evicted encroachers residing in the United Naga village (formerly Inavi) — on November 21, 2007 and June 16, 2009. During the second eviction drive, 388 houses were burnt down.

Since then, there has been rampant encroachment by other Naga tribes and there are now over 10 villages inside the park.