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Big blow to oil exploration in Manipur

IMPHAL: Oil exploration in Zeliangrong pocket in Manipur hits a major roadblock with a number of organization resolving to stop it at any cist.
The Zeliangrong Baudi, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland (AMN), Zeliangrong Youth Front, Zeliangrong Student Union, Manipur and social leaders in its joint meeting held on Saturday took serious note over the oil exploration activities carried out in “Zeliangrong land” by the Asian Oil Field Services Ltd, particularly in Tamenglong district without Zeliangrong people’s free, prior and informed consent.
A few unauthorised and non-mandated organisations like Rongmei Naga Youth Organisation (RNYO) and Rongmei Students Organisation Manipur (RSOM) are learnt to have issued permission to the said Asian Oil Field Services Ltd to explore oil and mineral resources in Tamenglong for a period of one year without prior informed and consent of the land owners, said Zeleingrong Baudi, AMN general secretary Gainithoi Gonmei in a statement on Saturday.
It said that in the context of Zeliangrong community no individual village or civil society has the right to issue permit to any company to tap Zeliangrong’s natural resources within the jurisdiction of its ancestral land. Who are those RNYOM and RSOM, asked the statement and said no one have “Laissez Faire’ to permit any company the natural resources without free, prior and informed consent.
“We should collectively defend our land and its resources for our posterity. Zeliangrong people should not extend any kind of cooperation to such unauthorised and non-mandated organisations who have been responsible for selling away our wealth and natural resources for few dollars without considering the future of our people, their land and resources,” it said.
It may be noted that RNYO and RSOM are frontal organisations of the Rongmei Naga People Organisation (RNPO), the statement further said, adding, “Here the role of RNPO and RNC is also questionable whether the Asian Oil Field Services Ltd or any other company or agency who has come to take our natural resources on the basis of the permission issued by those organisations into our ancestral land would be at its own risk or responsible for any consequences.”
Those people and organisations who have been cooperating wolves in sheep skin are also warned not to harbour any kind of support or cooperation to them any more in future, the statement said, adding that they should be exorcised from the society and areas once and for all.
The statement also informed general public of Zeliangrong living in Assam, Manipur and Nagaland and elsewhere in the country to observe last Sunday of February every year as the “Zeliangrong prayer day” for maintaining unity and integrity of Zeliangrong people.

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