No Entry or Exit: NSCN (IM) HQ Camp Hebron goes into Lockdown amid COVID-19 Scare

Dimapur, March 26, 2020:

Wonder of wonders! It now appears that the Isaak Muivah faction of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN-IM) has also followed the Indian Government's appeal to stay indoors due to the outbreak of the coronavirus (or COVID-19). Now, the NSCN (IM) has stated that no entry or exit will be allowed at the insurgent group's headquarter, Camp Hebron, for an unspecified period of time. This has been ordained by the Home Ministry of the NSCN-IM.

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It has now come to light that cadres of the Isaak Muivah faction of the Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) have become extra-alert and all are undergoing thermal screenings at the NSCN abode, Camp Hebron. It has further been announced that anyone entering the insurgent group’s administrative and military headquarters in Nagaland’s Dimapur is being checked thoroughly with thermal devices.

“COVID-19 respects no national or state boundary. It respects no social bounds, no political system and no cultural values. Nothing matters more than how we respond. The Health Ministry of GPRN is not taking any chance but is fully geared up to face the alarming situation”, the NSCN recently stated in an official release.

The organization has informed that besides other preventive measures like personal hygiene, every member in Camp Hebron is made to go through thermal screening. “No visitors coming to the camp are allowed to pass without thermal screening at the gate”, the NSCN has said. Now, the state's largest insurgent group has gone one step further and closed down the doors to the camp for good.

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Meanwhile, alarm bells continue to ring in the Northeast ever since the detection of the first case. It is pertinent to mention here that a 23-year-old girl from Imphal West district of Manipur has been tested positive for COVID-19, thereby making it the first positive case of Manipur on Tuesday morning. After the first corona POSITIVE case that was reported from Manipur yesterday, the State of Mizoram has recorded Northeast India’s second positive case of the virus, who, according to our sources, is a 50-year-old male.

According to reports, the patient is a 50-year-old man who recently returned from Amsterdam in Holland with his family. The test was tested at the Guwahati Medical College and Hospital (GMCH). An Inside Northeast source said that the man who has been detected COVID-19 positive is a pastor. He has been admitted right now in a medical college. He recently returned from Holland with his family on March 16, and started exhibiting symptoms on March 22. They have all been placed under isolation.”

The victim, a 50 year old man left from Amsterdam on March 15, 2020. On the way, he had made stops at Doha, New Delhi, and Guwahati. He entered Mizoram through Lengpui Airport on March 16, 2020. It has been reported that before his departure from Amsterdam, the COVID patient called up Health officials in Aizawl who had sent him the quarantine guidelines put up by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. The patient said that he strictly followed the guidelines given by authorities.

Dr Sawma of the Integrated Disease Surveillance Program (IDSP) in Mizoram has informed Inside Northeast that the situation is slowly returning to normal after the initial hue and cry over the detection. “The patient is okay now. He had a little fever, mild, but it is said to be coming down. It is said to be coming down.”

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