News Analysis India

Tag: Assam-Mizoram border issue

  • Miscreants trigger blast at Assam school on Mizoram border

    Express News Service

    GUWAHATI: The tension on the Assam-Mizoram border is far from over.

    The miscreants triggered a blast at an Assam government-run lower primary school in Hailakandi district on Friday night. The site of the incident is less than a kilometer from the “natural” border as the crow flies.

    Senior officials of district police and civil administration visited the site to take stock of the incident, the police said.

    “The incident occurred at around 11-11:30 pm yesterday. A wall of the school building was partially damaged. The locals heard an explosion and informed the police,” Hailakandi SP Gaurav Upadhyay told The New Indian Express.

    The area falls under the Gutguti border outpost of the Assam Police. The SP said immediately after receiving information, senior officers of the police and civil administration rushed to the site.

    ALSO READ | Assam Assembly passes cattle protection bill, Opposition stages a walkout

    “The matter is being investigated. Our officers are still at the site. There was no major damage to property but since a chance was taken, we are seriously investigating it,” Upadhyay said.

    The Dhaleswari river is the natural boundary of the two states in the area. The aerial distance from the river to the school will be 800 metres to 1 km inside Assam, the SP said.

    The incident comes on the heels of the July 26 interstate border violence that had left six Assam Police personnel dead and scores of others, including an SP, injured.

    Earlier this year, the miscreants had blown off two other government schools, one in Hailakandi and another in neighbouring Cachar district.

    Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the state Assembly on Friday that the British administration had in 1870 given a forest to the Lushai Hills (present-day Mizoram). The forest was bifurcated in 1932 with one portion going to Assam and the other to Mizoram.

    “When Mizoram was made a Union Territory in 1972, it was decided that the 1932 boundary will be its boundary. During the (signing off) Mizo peace accord, that very boundary was agreed to be made Mizoram’s boundary. Based on this boundary, Mizoram was created a state in 1987,” Sarma had stated.

  • Mizoram, Assam hold talks on boundary dispute; agree to resolve issue amicably

    By PTI

    AIZAWL: Representatives of Assam and Mizoram held talks here on Thursday and agreed to resolve the inter-state border dispute amicably, officials said.

    The Assam government also decided to revoke an advisory issued earlier against travel to Mizoram, they said.

    “Both the state governments agreed to maintain peace in the inter-state border areas and welcomed the deployment of neutral force by Government of India in this regard.”

    “For this purpose, both the states shall not send their respective forest and police forces for patrolling, domination, enforcement or for fresh deployment to any of the areas where confrontation had taken place between the police forces of the two states during recent times. This would include all such areas along the Assam-Mizoram border in the districts of Karimganj, Hailakandi, and Cachar in Assam, and Mizoram’s Mamit and Kolasib districts,” a joint statement issued by the two states said.

    ALSO READ | Two ministers, home secretary to engage in border dispute talks with Assam: Mizoram chief secretary

    The joint statement was signed by Assam’s Minister for Border Protection and Development Atul Bora and the department’s commissioner and secretary G D Tripathi, and Mizoram’s Home Minister Lalchamliana and Home Secretary Vanlalngathsaka.

    “Representatives of Governments of Assam and Mizoram agree to take all necessary measures to promote, preserve and maintain peace and harmony amongst people living in Assam and Mizoram, particularly in border areas,” the statement, shared on Twitter by Assam minister Ashok Singhal, said.

    Six Assam Police personnel were killed and over 50 people, including the Cachar SP, were injured in an inter-state border clash between the two northeastern neighbours on July 26.

    Both the states also condoled the deaths of those killed in the incident and prayed for the speedy recovery of the injured persons.

    ALSO READ | CYMA demands probe into involvement of outside forces in Mizoram-Assam border skirmishes

    “Govt. of Assam & Govt. of Mizoram successfully signed a Joint Statement today after deliberations at Aizawl. Both governments agree to take forward Ministry of Home Affairs’ initiatives to remove prevailing tensions and to find lasting solutions through discussions,” the Mizoram CMO tweeted.

    Assam minister Ashok Singhal said in a Twitter post, “With great optimism from both sides, we held our discussion with the Home Minister of Mizoram @Lalchamliana12 Ji & other officials on resolving the #AssamMizoramBorder issue. This is in continuation of the discussion initiated by HCM @himantabiswa Ji & HCM @ZoramthangaCM Ji.”

    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.

  • Ruckus in Assam assembly over boundary clash, oppn demands probe by central agencies

    By PTI

    GUWAHATI: The Assam assembly witnessed pandemonium on Wednesday as ruling and opposition members engaged in heated exchanges over the boundary clash with Mizoram, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House for 40 minutes.

    The entire opposition, comprising Congress, AIUDF, BPF, CPI(M) and Independent MLAs, rushed to the Well of the House demanding a neutral probe either by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and showed placards with slogans such as “give protection to border residents”.

    In a rare instance, ruling BJP legislators also rushed to the Well of the House to counter the opposition’s allegations.

    Members of the two sides, separated by the desk of the assembly secretary, pointed fingers at each other and banged the desk several times.

    Speaker Biswajit Daimary tried to pacify both sides in vain and finally adjourned the House for 40 minutes.

    Earlier, Congress MLA Kamalakhya Dey Purkayastha raised the issue as a Point of Order and informed the House that problems started with Mizoram from October 2020.

    “We had given a letter to the Union government informing it about the issue. Even after that, why did personnel of Assam Police die? Whose fault was this?” he said.

    Replying to the question, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pijush Hazarika said that Assam and Mizoram are not two different nations, but two neighbouring Indian states.

    “We have to solve our problems through dialogue and the process has already started.

    But I would like to inform the House that 34 people died in their (Congress) tenure (in inter-state clashes) since 1974,” he said.

    After Hazarika’s claim, all the opposition members rose from their seats and started shouting over the issue.

    At least six Assam Police personnel and one civilian were killed and over 50 people, including the Cachar SP, were injured as the festering border dispute between the two states turned into a bloody conflict on July 26.

  • Centre trying peaceful solution to Assam-Mizoram dispute; no plans for CBI probe in border clashes

    By PTI
    NEW DELHI: The Centre has no plans to order an inquiry by a neutral agency like the CBI into the recent fatal clashes along the Assam-Mizoram border but is trying to defuse the situation as early as possible in a peaceful manner.

    Two senior government functionaries said the Central government does not want to take any decision that may further escalate the ground situation.

    They said the Central government wants a peaceful resolution of the current border dispute between Assam and Mizoram and Union Home Minister Amit Shah is in regular touch with the two Chief Ministers — Himanta Biswa Sarma (Assam) and Zoramthanga (Mizoram).

    Zoramthanga also tweeted, “I still hope for an amicable solution to the #AssamMizoramBorderTension from the Central Government.”

    He also tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Shah, and the chief ministers of Meghalaya, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tripura and Sikkim in the tweet.

    Assam CM Sarma responded through a tweet: “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.”

    Asked whether a neutral probe agency like the CBI will be given the task to probe the July 26 clashes which killed five Assam police personnel and a civilian, the two functionaries said so far no decision has been taken in this regard.

    Besides, there has been no formal request from either of the state governments for a probe by a neutral agency, they said.

    “Both the state governments are cooperating and the central government is assured that there will be no more border flare-ups,” one of them said.

    Following the July 26 violence, both Assam and Mizoram Police registered separate cases naming each others’ political leaders and police and civil officials.

    While the Assam Police has named several police officers of Mizoram and served summonses to them and to the state”s lone Rajya Sabha MP K Vanlalvena, the Mizoram Police registered a case against civil and police officers of Assam and also named CM Sarma in the FIR.

    The two functionaries cited a number of measures taken to lower the tension along the Assam-Mizoram border.

    The chief secretaries and DGPs of the two states on July 28 attended a meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla where the decision to deploy a neutral central force (CRPF) at the clash site was taken.

    Prior to that, both the chief secretaries met in Delhi for a bilateral meeting. Subsequently, advisories were sent by the central government to both the states asking them to maintain peace and normalcy along their inter-state border.

    The two functionaries insisted that the July 26 violence was an “isolated incident” and there is no possibility of a similar flare-up in the future.

    Five Assam Police personnel and a civilian were killed and over 50 others including a superintendent of police were injured when the Mizoram Police opened fire on a team of the Assam officials on July 26 following clashes along the two states” border.

    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 insisted that the constitutional map and boundary drawn by survey of India in 1993 was acceptable to it.

    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.

    On June 5, two abandoned houses along the Mizoram-Assam border were burnt down by unidentified persons, fuelling tension along the volatile interstate border.

    Nearly a month after this incident, fresh border standoff cropped up with both parties trading charges of encroachment on each other’s land.

    While Mizoram accused Assam of encroaching upon its land and forcefully seized Aitlang area about 5 km west of Vairengte village, the neighbouring state accused Mizoram of building structures and planting betel nut and banana saplings allegedly 10 kilometers inside Hailakandi district.

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

    Officials said the 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.