Senapati, September 3: Speaking at a press conference at the United Naga Council (UNC) office, Ng. Lorho, the council’s president, renewed criticism of India’s border policies, declaring that Nagas have opposed the Indo-Burma border agreement “since day one.”
Lorho said the border was drawn “without the consent of the villagers,” describing it as an “artificial, imaginary line” imposed to serve India’s political expediency. He added that the recent scrapping of the Free Movement Regime (FMR) had further severed the social and cultural ties of Nagas living along the Indo-Myanmar border.
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The UNC, he noted, has submitted a series of memoranda to the Government of India—including to the Prime Minister, Union Home Minister, the Governor of Manipur, and the state’s Chief Minister—urging reconsideration. The council also engaged in talks with the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi on August 26, 2025, but Lorho said no breakthrough was achieved, accusing the government of being more focused on international border issues than on the grievances of the Naga people.
“The Government of India is not willing to address the grievances and sentiments of the people,” Lorho said, alleging that authorities “don’t bother about the indigenous traditional rights of the Naga people.”
Citing a resolution adopted at the UNC’s Presidential Council meeting, Lorho announced that a trade embargo would take effect across all Naga-inhabited areas from midnight of September 8, 2025, and remain in force until further notice.
The UNC president appealed for “utmost cooperation” from the Naga people in what he described as a fight for a dignified future. He also urged other communities to “kindly bear during this hard time,” saying Naga civil society groups were left with “no other option.”
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