At least five personnel of the Assam Police were killed, and more than 50 people, including officials, were injured in clashes at the border with Mizoram on Monday. The boundary dispute escalated into full-blown violence involving security forces and civilians on either side along the inter-state border in Cachar’s Lailapur.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, in a tweet, paid condolences to the six police officials and to the bereaved families. He said he is deeply pained to inform that six brave jawans of Assam Police have sacrificed their lives while defending the constitutional boundary of their state at the Assam-Mizoram border.
While Assam CM claimed that the police officials were deployed to defend the constitutional boundary, Mizoram home minister Lalchamliana said Mizoram police had to involve in firing to counter an assault by their counterparts.
Sarma further tweeted that after killing Assam police personnel and injuring many, this is how Mizoram police and goons are celebrating, sad and horrific, he wrote.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, meanwhile, has intervened to get Assam to withdraw its police deployment from the area so that the neutral CRPF could take back control of the inter-state border. Shah has also spoken to the chief ministers of both the states over the ongoing border row asked them to ensure peaceful resolution of the dispute.
Later, Sarma again took to Twitter, to state that Mizoram Police has used Light Machine Guns (LMG) against personnel of Assam Police. In a press release, he accused Mizoram of building a road destroying a Reserve Forest area in Lailapur and setting up an armed camp. The state said their police forces were attacked by miscreants and later, the Mizoram police when they went to resolve the situation.
Five Assam police personnel SI Swapan Kr Roy, Cn Liton Suklabaidya, Cn M.H. Barbhuyia, Cn S Hussain, Cn S Barbhuiya have been confirmed dead while the name of one more personnel is being confirmed, said the official statement of the Assam government.
On the other hand, the Mizoram government in an official statement said the violence started after around 200 Assam armed police led by IGP, Assam Police, accompanied by DC (Cachar), SP (Cachar), and DFO (Cachar), came to the Vairengte (Mizoram) autorickshaw stand around 11.30 am and overran a duty post manned by one section of Mizoram police personnel.
The Mizoram also accused Assam cops of assaulting residents of Vairengte town and bursting tear gas shells followed by firing from the Assam side. To which Mizoram police responded spontaneously by firing back, the Mizoram government added.
Meanwhile, the dispute between the two states dates around 50 years back to the formation of Mizoram which was first carved out of the erstwhile Assam state as a Union territory in 1972 before being made a full-fledged state in 1987.
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The 25-odd years festered dispute is centered on the exact definition of the boundary. The two states share a 164.6-km border between the Assamese districts of Cachar, Hailakandi, and Karimganj, and Mizoram’s Kolasib, Mamit, and Aizawl districts. However, several rounds of dialogue involving the Centre have been held since 1995 to resolve the dispute, albeit with little success.