- Wednesday, May 08, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
THE northeastern Indian state of Assam on Tuesday (27) said it will deploy 4,000 commandos to patrol its border with the neighbouring state of Mizoram after six of its police personnel were recently killed in a gunbattle between the forces of the two states over a border dispute, AFP reported.
More than 60 were also injured in the showdown that happened on Monday (26). The two states have been at loggerheads over their border for decades.
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who took over a few months ago, told media persons in Silchar in his state near where the clashes took place that the “new commando battalion” would be deployed at the border.
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Tensions between the two states had been brewing since June when Mizoram alleged that Assam had encroached on its soil. Assam counter-accused the villagers of Mizoram of encroaching on reserve forest land.
Assam, which shares a border with all other six states in India’s northeast, is the second-largest state in the area with an area of 78,438 square kilometres. Mizoram, on the other hand, is one of the smallest states of India with an area of 21,081 square kilometres. Mizoram was a part of Assam till 1972 when it was split up and became a state in 1986.
The situation turned so serious that Sarma and his Mizoram counterpart Zoramthanga even engaged in a public spat on social media. They later spoke to defuse the tension but the heightened conflict between their states has raised a question mark over the North East Democratic Alliance or NEDA which was formed as a platform for the non-Congress parties of the northeast. Both the chief ministers, who are part of the platform, were reportedly under pressure to quit it in the wake of the border clashes.
Union home minister Amit Shah has sought to resolve the row but a solution does not appear imminent. Sarma, who belongs to prime minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, said his government will petition the Supreme Court of India to ensure “not an inch of reserve forest is encroached upon”.
Zoramthanga, who is from the Mizo National Front, an ally of the NEDA led by the BJP, has accused the Assam Police of firing the first shots on Monday.
