NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday announced a peace accord with a faction of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), an armed rebel group in northeast India, ending the country’s oldest insurgency.

“My warm greetings to all those present here today, on this historic occasion,” Modi said in his address to the nation, after the signing of the peace accord between the government interlocutor and Th Muivah, NSCN’s influential IM faction’s general secretary.

“Today is historic, a golden moment, when they quit weapons and join the mainstream. I welcome them,” he added.

The agreement is expected to pave the way for peace in northeast India, particularly in the under-developed state of Nagaland, that shares its border with Myanmar.

The NSCN rebel group — over six decades old — is seen as the biggest and most violent insurgencies from amongst the dozens of big and small armed tribal and guerrilla armies that operate in India’s seven northeastern states.

Published in Dawn, August 4th, 2015

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