Reclusive Naga militant leader Shangnyu Shangwang Khaplang, who led the banned NSCN(K), has died in Myanmar. He was 77. Sources said he died at Taga in Sagaing division of Myanmar.
His group, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (K), spearheaded the June 7 attack on the Indian army in which a major was killed in the state's Mon district. Born in April, 1940, in Waktham village in Myanmar, Khaplang was also leading the United Liberation Front of Western South East Asia, an umbrella organisation of various north-east based militant groups. Along with two other Naga insurgent leaders: Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, Khaplang formed the National Socialist Council of Nagaland in 1980, considered the mother of all insurgent groups of the Northeast.