Kohima: National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN I-M) on August 29 said it never issued threats to ministers and MLAs of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh asking them to withdraw their support to leadership of S C Jamir and Mukut Mithi respectively.

The Chief Ministers of the two states had charged NSCN (I-M) with issuing threats to their ministers and MLAs asking them to withdraw support to the two leaders.

Reacting to Jamir's statement, information and publicity wing of NSCN (I-M) said it never threatened any minister and MLA of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh to harm them unless they withdraw their support to Jamir and Mithi.

The underground outfit, in a statement appealed to the Naga people not to believe the "false statement" made by Jamir with a "motive to tarnish the image" of NSCN (I- M).

NSCN (I-M) maintained it might be Jamir himself who had threatened the ministers and MLAs not to withdraw their support to him because he was afraid to face the elections knowing that the Naga people would not elect him.

"If they (ministers and MLAs) were really threatened, they would have come out with evidence by now," the outfit said.

NSCN (I-M), in a separate statement, said it never distributed the copy of the outfit's proposals to the Centre to form the basis for discussions of Naga peace talks as claimed by Nagaland Chief Minister.

PTI