The Nagaland government has asked its employees to furnish details of family members and relatives who are members of underground organisations by August 7.

Chief secretary Temjen Toy, in a July 7 communiqué, asked administrative heads of government departments to obtain the information and submit it to the home department in the format attached with the office memorandum within the deadline.

Although Toy was unavailable for comment, official sources said such information was collected “discreetly” because the state has been plagued by insurgency since the fifties. “To the best of my knowledge, this is the first time (such an order has been issued),” an official said.

Toy’s directive comes amid a raging row over governor R.N. Ravi’s June 16 letter to chief minister Neiphiu Rio about the “grim” law and order situation and rampant extortion by armed gangs.

The Rio-led NDPP-BJP state government has rejected Ravi’s assessment while NSCN (I-M) has said it only “levies tax”, something which has not been objected to by the Centre, which signed a framework agreement in 2015 to end the Naga imbroglio.

Apart from the NSCN(I-M) and the seven outfits which make up the Naga National Political Groups (NNPGs), there is the NSCN(K) among the major outfits which levy or collect “taxes” from government employees, traders and contractors, sources said.

The order may have been issued because the government wants to know the exact number of underground organisation members so they are ready for their rehabilitation once the final Naga solution is announced.

“The second reason could be to minimise the underground organisations’ influence over the government machinery by collecting the data,” a source said.

Copies of the memorandum have been sent to the Raj Bhawan, the chief minister’s office and the director-general of police. Government employees will have to state the name of family member /relative associated with the underground organisation.