Assam-Mizoram border row heightens

October 31, 2020 73 Views No Comment

GUWAHATI, October 31 (AGENCIES): A week after a supposed breakthrough, a festering Mizoram-Assam boundary row worsened Friday, intensifying blockades and protests along the border between the two states after the Mizoram government announced that it is not withdrawing its forces.

The agitators in southern Assam refused to call off their blockade of National Highway 306, the lifeline of Mizoram, seeking withdrawal of security personnel from Assam’s area. Mizoram home minister Lalchamliana said his government would not withdraw its forces from the state border with Assam till normalcy returns.

The minister said his government accepted the demarcation notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) of 1873 as the actual boundary of Mizoram and Assam. He claimed that some local residents of Lailapur (in Cachar district of southern Assam) “backed by Assam officials” blockaded National Highway 306 leading to Mizoram’s Bairabi village since Wednesday.

Movement of vehicles on the NH 306, which has been blocked by residents of Lailapur in Assam’s Cachar district since Wednesday seeking withdrawal of the neighbouring state’s security personnel from Assam territory, continued to remain paralysed.

Lalchamliana said that the state government is taking steps to ensure that supply of essential commodities is not hampered. Mizoram transports all its essentials, food grains, transport fuel and various other goods and machines through this highway. Sources in the Mizoram government have said they are in talks to work out an alternative route to bring in essentials through Manipur.

On Friday, Assam’s forest minister Parimal Suklabaidya visited the border areas and interacted with residents. He assured that the government is taking steps to resolve the border dispute soon.

The minister visited the newly set up border out post (BoP) at Singua and assured residents that two more BoPs would soon be set up at Tulartal and Baghewala areas. The border tension between the two states was resolved on Thursday last after Union Home Secretary held a video conference with the chief secretaries of both Assam and Mizoram to defuse the situation.

Asserting that tension was prevailing between the two neighbouring states following a bomb blast in a school and video clips flashed on local news channel claiming that non-Mizo residents were being harassed in Mizoram, security sources said that it has created anger among the people living in bordering areas.

Meanwhile, Assam ADGP (law and order) G P Singh told reporters that a recent bomb blast in a school in Lailapur along the Assam-Mizoram border may have been an attempt to terrorise the locals. Assam Police will request its counterpart to hand over the probe of the incident to a central agency.

The deadlock at the Assam-Mizoram border has been on since October 9 and took an ugly turn with around 20 shops and houses burnt and several people injured in attacks and counter-attacks by the people living along the border on October 17.