Tension runs high along Assam-Mizoram border after bloody clash **3-day mourning announced ** Assam govt to move SC
HT Bureau
GUWAHATI, July 27: The situation on the Assam-Mizoram border remained tense as the Assam government declared a three-day mourning from Tuesday to condole the death of five policemen and a civilian in a border clash on Monday.
During the three-day mourning period, the national flag will fly at half-mast and there will be no public entertainment, a notification issued by the Assam government said.
At least six persons were killed and 60 others, including an SP, were injured in a bloody clash between the police forces of the two states along the Assam-Mizoram border on Monday.
The situation has prompted the Centre to call a meeting of the chief secretaries and DGPs of Assam and Mizoram on Wednesday.
Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla will chair the meeting to discuss the sudden escalation of violence along the Assam-Mizoram border.
The meeting of the chief secretaries and directors general of police is expected to work on a peace formula so that there is no repeat of the violence along the border of the two states, a home ministry official said.
The Central government is in regular touch with the Assam and Mizoram governments and trying to calm down the situation, the officials said, adding CRPF has been deployed in the violence-hit area.
The Assam government will move the Supreme Court seeking protection of Inner line Forest Reserve from destruction and encroachment, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Tuesday.
Sarma paid floral tributes to the five slain policemen at Silchar on Tuesday.
“We are deeply anguished by the loss of lives of our brave @assam police personnel. I visited Silchar SP office and paid floral tributes to the five martyrs and saluted their sacrifice,” he tweeted.
Earlier in the day, the chief minister visited the Silchar Medical College and Hospital and met the police personnel injured in the attack.
Cachar superintendent of police Vaibhab Chandrakant Nimbalkar, has been airlifted to a hospital in Mumbai.
The chief minister told a press conference in Silchar that satellite images have shown that roads are being constructed and forests cleared for jhum cultivation which cannot be allowed.
“We will move the Supreme Court to ensure that the forests are protected,” he said.
Jhum cultivation is a farming activity where farmland is cleared of trees and other vegetation and then set on fire. The practice is followed in most states of the northeast.
“The dispute is not regarding land but encroachment of reserved forests is the issue. We have no settlements in the forest areas and, if Mizoram can give evidence, we will immediately carry out eviction,” Sarma said.
The chief minister asserted that not an inch of Assam’s land could be encroached by the neighbouring state.
“People have sacrificed their lives but the boundary has been protected which we will continue to do at any cost,” he asserted.
After the vexed border dispute erupted into bloody clashes with security personnel and civilians from the two states going after each other on Monday, the Centre had directed them to move their forces away from the border post.
“We have done so but Mizoram is yet to do so. Our police forces are, however, deployed 100 metres from the post,” the chief minister said.
He also said the state government will deploy three commando battalions in Cachar, Karimganj and Haila