GUWAHATI

The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) has said it will “make every effort through all available and appropriate means” to identify those responsible for the blast that killed an Assam Rifles havildar in Nagaland on Monday (July 13, 2026).

According to an official statement, a suspected improvised explosive device (IED) blast killed Havildar Mohammed Iqbal, who was posted with the Assam Rifles Training Centre and School at Sukhovi in Chümoukedima district. He was from Kallar Mohra village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district.

The NSCN, also known as the Isak-Muivah faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, condemned the “cowardly terrorist act of planting and detonating” an IED that killed an Indian soldier and injured four others.

“Such indiscriminate acts of violence serve no legitimate purpose other than to spread fear, create chaos, and undermine the peaceful atmosphere that the people have long desired and worked to preserve,” the outfit, in ceasefire mode since 1997, said in a statement on Tuesday (July 14, 2026).

It said that the NSCN, as a signatory to the Geneva Call Deed of Commitment banning anti-personnel mines, rejects the use of weapons such as IEDs. The group also said that it remains under the “Indo-Naga ceasefire agreement and shall continue to honour the letter and spirit of the ceasefire ground rules”.

The NSCN, based at Camp Hebron near Dimapur, vowed to use its resources to “ascertain the truth” behind the blast and identify the perpetrators, as such people “must be exposed and held accountable”.

Raising questions

Former Nagaland Minister Mmhonlumo Kikon, who quit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2025, said the reported IED blast raised questions that cannot be ignored.

“An incident involving explosives near an Army training facility naturally prompts concerns about security preparedness and intelligence gathering. The public deserves clarity on how this happened and whether existing preventive measures were adequate,” he said.

“Nagaland’s peace is too precious to take for granted. Every such incident must be investigated with urgency, not only to establish the facts but also to ensure that it does not become a precursor to a more worrying security situation,” he added.