Assam-Mizoram border violence: Veerappa Moily slams Home Ministry’s ‘failure’

By PTI
NEW DELHI: Senior Congress leader M Veerappa Moily on Wednesday attacked the Centre over the violence at the Assam-Mizoram border, saying that the incident demonstrated the “failure” of the Union Home Ministry and central para-military forces should have been deployed.

The former Union minister said if states resort to deploying their own police forces to resolve the border disputes, the internal security of the country will be jeopardised.

Seven people were killed and 50 others, including an SP, injured in an exchange of fire between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram along their inter-state border.

In a statement, Moily said the nation is shocked to witness the clash between the police forces of Assam and Mizoram.

The episode of violence is a clear case of failure of constitutional machinery. This demonstrates the failure of the union Home Ministry which failed to de-escalate the tensions. The central para-military forces should have been deployed at the instance of the Home Ministry,” he said.

Moily said “laxity” on the part of the home ministry, particularly Home Minister Amit Shah, is a sad reflection of the failure to resolve interstate conflicts.

It is quite surprising that both the states are ruled by BJP and its allies, he said.

Noting that the UPA-1 had constituted the second Administrative Reforms Commission under his chairmanship and it submitted its 7th Report titled ‘Capacity Building for Conflict Resolution’, Moily said one of the key recommendations of the said report is on the North Eastern Policy Academy (NEPA) and also deployment of police personnel from the region to Central Police Organisations.

The government of India should ensure that all the recommendations of the 7th Report of the second Administrative Reforms Commission should be implemented, he said.

“The present scuffle should not be allowed to escalate particularly in the sensitive Northeastern states.

If states resort to taking recourse on their own and deploy their own police forces to resolve the border disputes, the internal security of the country will be jeopardised,” he said.

“It is unfortunate that both Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) and Home Minister (Amit Shah) have not taken the episode as an ‘alert signal’ to nip this case in the bud,” Moily said.