Mizoram Home Minister holds boundary committee meet ahead of talks with Assam

Aizawl, April 16 (IANS) The official-level discussion between the Mizoram and Assam governments will be held on April 25 in Guwahati to resolve the disputes along the 164.6 km-long border between the two northeastern states.

A senior official said here on Wednesday that the Mizoram government would send seven officers, led by state Home Secretary Vanlalmawia, to the Mizoram-Assam Secretary-level meeting on the interstate border dispute.

The seventh Mizoram State Boundary Committee meeting, chaired by state Home Minister K. Sapdanga, was held on Wednesday and discussed the report of the four-member study group, which was formed on January 25, 2024.

Revenue Minister B. Lalchhanzova, adviser to Chief Minister (Political) Pu Lalmuanpuia Punte, Chief Secretary in-charge H. Lalengmawia and study group on Assam-Mizoram boundary members were present at the meeting. Border experts and Home Department officials also attended the meeting.

Ministerial-level discussions between Assam and Mizoram were held in Aizawl on August 9, 2024, where both state governments reaffirmed their promise to maintain peace and stability along the disputed border. However, the fourth round of ministerial discussions in August last year concluded without significant progress on the disputes. “The previous ministerial-level discussion (in August last year) could not achieve much due to the lack of prior groundwork at the official level talks. Before convening the fifth round of ministerial-level talks, official-level discussions are vital to gain significant results in the ministerial-level deliberations,” the official said.

The ministerial-level meeting of the two northeastern states was held here on August 9 last year after 21 months and was the first meeting after the Zoram People's Movement (ZPM), led by Chief Minister Lalduhoma, came to power in Mizoram in 2023. After the August 9 meeting in Aizawl, Assam Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora, who led his state's delegation, had said the discussions were positive and both states were committed to finding a way to amicably resolve the border dispute.

Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga, who headed the state’s delegation, said they were “very optimistic” about resolving the pending border dispute. He had earlier said that as per the decision of the third ministerial-level meeting held in Guwahati in November 2022, the state government has already submitted a list of 62 border villages to the Assam government that are within the Mizoram territory.

Mizoram's Aizawl, Kolasib, and Mamit districts adjoin southern Assam's Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi districts. Amid the long-standing border dispute between the two states, the border area saw its worst-ever violence on July 26, 2021, when the Assam and Mizoram Police exchanged fire in the disputed area near Vairengte village on National Highway 306, leaving six Assam Police personnel dead and many injured.

Mizoram claims that 509 square miles of the reserved forest, notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) 1873, falls within its territory.

Assam, on the other hand, regarded the border shown on a map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 as its current boundary. The border dispute began in 1972 when Mizoram, then one of the districts of Assam, became a Union Territory and the boundary between Assam and Mizoram was vaguely made under the North-East Areas Reorganisation Act, 1971, without any ground demarcation.

--IANS

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