The aide of a candidate contesting the February 27 Assembly elections from Koridang in Nagaland’s Mokokchung district was attacked on Sunday, The Morung Express reported.
Mokokchung Deputy Commissioner Sushil Kumar Patel has imposed Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the district. The section, which prohibits more than four people from assembling in an area, went into effect at 4 pm on Sunday and will be in place till February 28.
The incident took place a day after eight people were injured when two groups fired at each other at Chungtia village in Koridang. Two platoons of security forces had been deployed to bring the situation in the village under control, news agency UNI quoted unidentified officials as saying.
The constituency will witness a three-way electoral contest between the incumbent Imkong L Imchen of the Naga People’s Front, the National People’s Party candidate T Chalukumba Ao, and the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party’s C Lima Imchen. Unidentified people had allegedly attacked Ao at the New Market area of Mokokchung town on February 16. The candidate’s bodyguards reportedly thwarted the suspected attackers.
“The law-and-order situation in the district has been reviewed and information of possible breach of peace, disturbance of public tranquillity is anticipated in the district of Mokokchung,” Patel said in his order. “There is every reason to believe that unknown miscreants and disgruntled persons may attempt to create disorder and trouble…interfering in the smooth and fair conduct of elections and thereby may cause a breach of peace of public tranquillity.”
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