News Analysis India

Tag: Assam Mizoram border dispute

  • Efforts on to resolve border dispute with Assam: Mizoram Home Minister Lalchamliana

    By PTI

    AIZAWL: The Mizoram government has devised strategies and making massive efforts to resolve the long-standing border dispute with neighbouring Assam, state Home Minister Lalchamliana told the assembly on Thursday.

    The state government had in 2018 constituted a core committee to study and assess the state boundary.

    It was re-constituted with chief secretary Lalnunmawia Chuaunog as the chairman in 2019, he said.

    “The core committee is currently doing research and analysis on the state border by collecting topo-sheets and important documents related to the state boundary with Assam,” Lalchamliana said, replying to a query from Congress Legislature Party leader Zodintluanga Ralte.

    ALSO READ | Mizoram alleges JCB operator kidnapped at gun point by Assam cops

    The state government has already appointed a nodal officer on the border issue and submitted a report to the Centre as per the Union Ministry of Home Affairs instruction, he said.

    According to the home minister, the state government has also constituted a team to compile important documents, supportive of Mizoram’s stand on the border issue and it will be tabled before experts from Manohar Parrikar Institute of Defence Studies when they visit the state.

    A boundary committee involving all political parties and NGOs, headed by Deputy Chief Minister Tawnluia, has also been formed recently to deal with the issue, Lalchamliana said.

    On Wednesday, the home minister claimed in the assembly that Assam has encroached and is currently occupying a vast area of lands belonging to at least 20 farmers from Kolasib district.

    These lands are located in Aitlang area, bordering Assam’s Hailakandi district, and Buarchep and Phainuam areas on the border with Assam’s Cachar district, the home minister had said.

    ​ALSO READ | Two Assam men arrested with meth tablets worth Rs 100 crore in Mizoram: Police

    “There is no report of any encroachment from the neighbouring state at Thinghlun in western Mizoram’s Mamit district, which borders Assam’s Karimganj district,” Lalchamliana was quoted as saying by assembly officials.

    Mizoram’s three districts — Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit share a 164.6 km long inter-state border with Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts.

    Tension escalated on July 26 when police forces of both states exchanged fire, leaving at least six police personnel and a civilian from Assam dead and more than 60 people injured.

    The boundary dispute between the two Northeastern states is a long-standing issue and several attempts to resolve it since 1994 have yielded little result.

  • Mizoram alleges JCB operator kidnapped at gun point by Assam cops

    By Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: The Mizoram government on Thursday alleged that a JCB operator was kidnapped at gun point near the interstate border by a group of Assam Police personnel, who also dragged him by a river, ripped off his clothes and threatened him with dire consequences.

    “It has been brought to my notice based on a reliable report that this afternoon at Aitlang in Pu (Mr) Lalngaisanga’s land where road construction connecting jhum land is undertaken by the farmers using excavator JCB…

    “Assam Police went to disrupt their activity and damaged the door of excavator and snatched the keys from the JCB operator Pu Lalnarammawia,” Mizoram’s Kolasib District Magistrate H Lalthlangliana wrote to his Hailakandi counterpart in Assam Rohan Jha in a letter, a copy of which was available with The New Indian Express.Further, the JCB operator was blindfolded and kidnapped with a gun pointed to his head by the Assam Police wearing commando uniform. He was then dragged by the river, ripped off his clothes and threatened. His mobile phone, along with JCB keys, was taken away by the Assam Police, Lalthlangliana further wrote.

    Viewing this as a very serious issue and a huge setback to the peace initiatives, the Kolasib DM said this could aggravate the situation on the interstate border.

    He urged Jha to immediately intervene and take necessary action against the “perpetrators” and return the items to the JCB owner and its operator at the earliest, indicating the operator, who was allegedly kidnapped, was released.

    Senior officials of the Hailakandi district were not available for comments.

    On July 26, six Assam Police personnel were killed while scores of others, including a Superintendent of Police, injured, during a gunfight with Mizoram Police on the interstate border. The trouble broke out due to border dispute.

  • NHRC issues notices to Centre, Assam, Mizoram on border clash

    By PTI

    GUWAHATI: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) issued notices to the Centre, Assam and Mizoram over the deadly border clash between the two Northeastern states in July, stating that “grave violation of human rights” took place.

    Acting on a complaint by one Md Injamul Haque of Assam, the NHRC on Sunday issued notices to the Union home secretary and the chief secretaries of Assam and Mizoram, and asked them to file their reports within four weeks.

    “The Commission has considered the matter. Facts of the case are disturbing. The allegations made in the complaint are serious in nature involving deaths and injuries to the public servants.

    ​ALSO READ | Tension eases on Mizoram border after Assam returns seized construction materials

    “The case therefore involves grave violation of Human Rights of the deceased and injured. Such types of cases are viewed very seriously by the Commission. In these circumstances, let a Notice be sent,” as per the details of the proceedings.

    Accordingly, notices were issued and the matter will be put up before the full commission after four weeks.

    At least six Assam Police personnel and one civilian were killed and more than 50 people injured as the festering border dispute between the two Northeastern states erupted into a bloody conflict on July 26.

  • Chief Minister’s service medal for six Assam cops killed in interstate border dispute

    By PTI

    GUWAHATI: The six police personnel who were killed in a bloody clash last month in Cachar district, along the Assam-Mizoram border, will be posthumously awarded the ‘Chief Minister’s Special Service Medal in a crisis situation’, on the occasion of India’s 75th Independence Day.

    The state government will also honour the then Cachar Superintendent of Police Nimbalkar Vaibhav Chandrakanta, who was critically injured in the attack, and four other policemen with the ‘Chief Minister’s Outstanding Service Medal’, according to an official release issued on Saturday.

    The posthumous awardees are Sub Inspector Swapan Kumar Roy, Havildar Shyam Sundar Dusad, constables Samsuzzaman Barbhuiya, Liton Suklabaidya, Mazrul Hoque Barbhuiya and Nazrul Hussain.

    Besides Chandrakanta, others who will receive the Chief Minister’s Outstanding Service Medal are Inspector Mukul Kakoti of Police Commissioner’s Office, Guwahati, Inspector Satyen Singh Hazari of Biswanath district, Sub Inspector Mwblik Brahma and Constable Borsingh Bey of Karbi Anglong.

  • Assam blockade lifted, over 100 vehicles enter Mizoram

    Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: In a huge relief for Mizoram, vehicles started moving into the landlocked state since Saturday night following the lifting of an ‘economic blockade’ imposed in Assam.Some organisations in southern Assam’s Barak Valley had imposed the blockade on the roads leading to Mizoram, including National Highway 306, in protest against the July 26 skirmishes on the interstate border that left six Assam Police personnel dead.The National Highway 306, which traverses Assam’s Cachar district, is Mizoram’s lifeline. Supplies were choked since the day of the violence in the wake of the enforcement of the blockade.Official sources in Mizoram said over 100 vehicles, including goods-laden trucks which were stranded in Cachar, entered the state since Saturday night.”More than 100 vehicles have entered the state so far. Two trucks carrying COVID-19 items had set out from Cachar on Saturday night but they had to go back due to stone-pelting,” Mizoram’s Kolasib Superintendent of Police Vanlalfaka Ralte told this newspaper.He said the trucks, carrying COVID-19 items, would start arriving in the state from Monday.At the instruction of Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, ministers Ashok Singhal and Parimal Suklabaidya visited Cachar on Saturday evening and they, along with senior officials of the Cachar administration, helped restore normalcy.The breakthrough was achieved after a series of discussions with the protestors but not before they attacked some vehicles with stones in front of the two ministers.”They (protestors) relented in the greater interest of peace and to maintain the age-old relations between the two states,” Singhal said.Mizoram Minister Lalruatkima thanked the Assam government for its efforts in engaging with the protestors and convincing them to lift the blockade.Mizoram Health Minister R Lalthangliana had on Saturday blamed the blockade for the recent deaths of COVID-19 patients in the state.“COVID-19 patients are dying for want of medicines. Seriously-ill patients are in dire needs of life-saving drugs,” he had said.Official sources had said the RT-PCR lab at the Zoram Medical College in Aizawl was facing an acute shortage of essential testing reagents which resulted in sample testing in the state getting capped based on the available stock. 

    Some drivers, however, remained reluctant to move their vehicles across the border.

    Rahul Hussain, a stranded driver, said they “were willing to enter Mizoram” but demanded a written assurance for protection to be given.

    The two states share a 164.6-km border between Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, and Mizoram’s Kolasib, Mamit and Aizawl districts.

    Both states have differing interpretations of their territorial border.

    While Mizoram believes that its border lies along an ‘inner line’ drawn up in 1875 to protect tribals from outside influence, Assam goes by a district demarcation done in the 1930s.

    (With PTI inputs)

  • Incidents at Assam-Mizoram border unacceptable, talk only solution: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma

    By PTI
    GUWAHATI/AIZAWL: Six days after a violent clash between police forces of Assam and Mizoram claimed seven lives and injured over 50 people, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said such incidents along the inter-state border are “unacceptable” to people of both the states and advocated a resolution through talks.

    Assam Chief Minister Sarma, who has been charged with criminal conspiracy and attempt to murder in an FIR by Mizoram Police, also spoke of keeping alive the spirit of the North East in a twitter post.

    The tweet comes after Union Home Minister Amit Shah spoke to both Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Mizoram CM Zoramthanga telephonically earlier in the day to defuse the border tension between the two Northeastern neighbours.

    “Our main focus is on keeping the spirit of North-East alive. What happened along the Assam-Mizoram border is unacceptable to the people of both states. Honble CM @ZoramthangaCM had promised to call me post his quarantine. Border disputes can only be resolved through discussion,” Sarma said in his tweet.

    Despite an attempt by Shah to resolve the long standing border disuptes between Assam and its neighbours earlier this month through a meeting he chaired, at least six Assam Police personnel and one civilian were killed while defending a disputed boundary with Mizoram and more than 50 people injured, including the police chief of the district of Cachar.

    The Mizoram police had lodged an FIR against Sarma and six Assam officials under various charges, including charges of attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy, at Vairengte police station.

    The Assam Police has also issued summons to six officials of Mizoram government, including the deputy commissioner and superintendent of police of Kolasib district, and ordered them to appear at Dholai police station on Monday.

    However, on Sunday, the Chief Secretary of Mizoram has said the state’s chief minister had frowned on charges levelled against his Assam counterpart and indicated these are likely to be withdrawn.

    Despite an agreement hammered out on Wednesday night, by the Union home ministry to maintain calm on the border and to allow a neutral central police force to act as peace-keepers, the two states have continued to trade charges of reinforcing police pickets and of not refusing to honour the agreement which calls for pulling back forces from the border.

    Assamese local organisations which had soon after the clash announced an economic blockade of Mizoram have since lifted their `blokade’, but truckers afraid of possible violence have opted to either park their vehicles near the border in Cachar district’s Dholai or to circumvent the troubled boundary by taking a longer route through Tripura.

    Assam government on Thursday had also issued an unprecedented travel advisory asking people not to travel to Mizoram and advised people from the state working or staying there to  exercise utmost caution.

    Tension along the border with Mizoram in Cachar and Hailakandi districts of Assam have been escalating since October 2020 with frequent incidents of burning of houses and encroachment of land.

    The two states share a 164.6-km border between Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, and Mizoram’s Kolasib, Mamit and Aizawl districts.

    Both states have differing interpretations of their territorial border.

    While Mizoram believes that its border lies along an ‘inner line’ drawn up in 1875 to protect tribals from outside influence, Assam goes by a district demarcation done in the 1930s.

     

  • Mizoram eludes Assam blockade, brings commodities from Tripura

    Express News Service
    GUWAHATI: With supplies choked due to an “economic blockade” imposed by the locals in Assam’s Cachar and Hailakandi districts since July 27, Mizoram has begun transporting essential items from Tripura.

    Several trucks, carrying the first consignment of essential commodities, entered the state on Friday from Tripura.

    The blockade was imposed on two roads, which lead to Mizoram via Cachar and Hailakandi, as a mark of protest against the July 26 violence on the interstate border that left six Assam Police personnel dead and scores others, including an IPS officer, injured.

    Mizoram’s Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Minister K Lalrinliana said the state was also “facilitating” the transportation of essential items from Manipur.

    Mizoram border with Assam is 164.6 km, 95 km with Manipur, and 66 km with Tripura.

    Lalrinliana said the Food Corporation of India (FCI) would transport rice to Mizoram from Tripura. The Mizoram government has signed an agreement with the FCI in this regard, he said.

    ALSO READ | Assam border standoff: CM Himanta Biswa Sarma defends travel advisory on Mizoram

    According to the minister, Mizoram has sufficient rice stocks. He said the state government was in talks with Manipur government for the transportation of fuel and LPG cylinders.

    “The state government is taking all steps to make sure there is no crisis of essential commodities,” Lalrinliana said.

    Chief Minister Zoramthanga was optimistic the Centre would help resolve the border problem. “I still hope for an amicable solution to the #AssamMizoramBorderTension from the Central Government,” he tweeted on Friday.

    In another tweet, he wrote: “Northeast will always be #One.”

    The District Magistrate of Mizoram’s Kolasib issued a public notice on Friday stating that there would be no restriction on the movement of non-residents of Mizoram traveling through Kolasib.

    “Mizo residents are also advised to cause no disturbance and harm to non-locals within Kolasib district in connection with the interstate boundary issue on Mizoram-Assam border,” the notice reads.

    Given the border skirmishes and resultant tension, the Assam government had issued a travel advisory on Thursday, asking the people of the state not to travel to Mizoram.

  • Chief Secretary-level talks in Delhi on July 9 to resolve Assam-Mizoram border dispute

    By PTI
    AIZAWL: A chief secretary-level talks will be held in Delhi on July 9 to defuse the prevailing tension along the Mizoram-Assam border, an official said on Friday.

    Kolasib district deputy commissioner H. Lalthlangliana told PTI that chief secretaries of both the states will have bilateral talks over the inter-state border following the fresh tension that erupted on Tuesday at Aitlang hnar area in Kolasib district which borders Assam’s Hailakandi district.

    The chief secretary-level meet will be held in the national capital on July 9, he said.

    Meanwhile, Kolasib Superintendent of Police (SP) Vanlalfaka Ralte said that the situation along the Mizoram- Assam border is peaceful now.

    He said that both the state forces are still camping at the disputed area on either side of the border.

    “There was neither confrontation nor untoward incident at the inter-state border, where fresh tension erupted recently. There were no new activities from both the sides on Friday. The situation is peaceful now,” he told PTI.

    He said that both parties were working hard to bring back normalcy in the border areas.

    Mizoram shares about 164.6 km long border with Assam.

    The northeastern state was part of Assam until 1972, when it was carved out as a Union Territory.

    Mizoram became the 23rd state of India on 20 February 1987 following the historic Mizoram accord between the erstwhile underground Mizo National Front (MNF) and the Centre, which ended 20 years insurgency in the state.

    The border dispute between the two neighbouring states is a long-standing issue that persisted for decades.

    Several dialogues involving the Centre held since 1995 to resolve the dispute yielded little result.

    While the Mizoram government claimed that a 509 square- mile stretch of the inner-line reserve forest notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 belongs to it, the Assam side agreed with the constitutional map and boundary drawn by survey of India in 1993.

    After a massive tussle in 2018, the border row resurfaced in August last year and then in February this year.

    However, the escalating tensions were successfully defused after a series of parleys with the intervention of the Centre.

    Earlier on June 5, two abandoned houses along the Mizoram-Assam border were burned down by unidentified persons, fuelling tension along the volatile inter-state border.

    Nearly a month after this incident, fresh border standoff cropped up on Tuesday with both trading charges of encroachment on each other lands.

    While Mizoram accused Assam of encroaching upon its land and forcefully seized Aitlang hnar area about 5 km west of Vairengte village, the neighbouring state accused Mizoram of building structures and planting betel nut and banana saplings allegedly ten kilometers inside Hailakandi district.

    Two makeshift camps erected by Mizoram police on the disputed area were damaged by Assam police during a confrontation on Thursday.

    Officials of Assam’s Hailakhandi district administration has said razing of two camps constructed by Mizos and also a COVID-19 testing centre built by them was part of the efforts to foil Mizoram’s bid to capture its land on the border.

  • Mizoram accuses Assam of encroachment as border dispute escalates

    By PTI
    AIZAWL: Mizoram on Wednesday accused Assam of encroaching upon its land in the Kolasib district, in a new escalation of the border dispute between the two Northeastern states.

    Kolasib district’s superintendent of police Vanlalfaka Ralte said over a hundred officials and policemen led by Assam’s Hailakandi district deputy commissioner and SP entered Mizoram’s territory and has been camping there since June 29, 2021.

    The area, locally known as Aitlang hnar (the source of river Aitlang), belongs to Mizoram and is about 5 km from Vairengte village in Kolasib which borders Assam’s Karimganj district, he said.

    The residents of Vairengte practise plantations in the area, which they claim belongs to Mizoram since time immemorial, Ralte said.

    A host of district officials and police personnel from Assam arrived and forcefully seized the area on Tuesday, he alleged.

    “It is pure aggression by the neighbouring state as the area belongs to Mizoram. The local farmers were forced to flee for fear of being attacked by armed personnel,” Ralte, who is currently camping at the site, told PTI.

    Officials on the Assam side were not immediately available for comments on the matter.

    On learning about the incident, district officials and policemen from Mizoram led by a sub-divisional officer rushed to the spot on Tuesday to take stock of the situation, Ralte said.

    Officials of both states held a discussion at the site on Tuesday but Assam officials refused to withdraw from the area, he alleged.

    Residents of Vairengte, who rushed to the site, were sent back home to prevent violence, the police officer said.

    Kolasib’s deputy commissioner H Lalthlangliana is also in the area.

    Three districts of Mizoram — Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit — share about a 164.6 km border with Assam’s Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts. The border dispute between the two neighbouring states is a long pending issue.

    Several dialogues held since 1995 to resolve the dispute yielded little result. After a massive tussle in 2018, the border row resurfaced in August last year.

    The matter further escalated in February and was defused after a series of parleys with the intervention of the Centre.