Aizawl: Mizoram home minister Lalchamlianna on Monday said that Assam did not encroach on Mizoram territory.
In a written reply to a question from opposition Congress leader Zodintluanga Ralte, the home minister said Mizoram did not lose any land to Assam. In another written reply, he also said that Assam did not grab or encroach on Mizoram territory.
“In fact, some areas occupied by Mizoram now fall under Assam as per the notification issued on 9 March, 1933, which the neighbouring state accepted as its constitutional boundary,” Lalchamliana said.
He, however, said that the state government has been taking measures to ensure that the inner line reserve forest, which was notified under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) in August 1875 is occupied by the state.
The 1875 notification was accepted by Mizoram as its actual boundary, he said.
On a question about farmers who practice plantation and farms along the Mizoram-Assam border, Lalchamliana said that no farmer has so far faced a problem in collecting and harvesting their products.
Three Mizoram’s districts – Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit share a 164.6-km-long border with Assam’s Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts. The border dispute between the two neighbouring states that stemmed from the two colonial demarcations dated 1875 and 1933 remained unresolved for decades.
Mizoram held that a 509 square miles stretch of inner line reserved forest notified in 1875, a vast area of which now falls under Assam, is the actual boundary of the state.
Assam, on the other hand, claimed that the boundary as per survey of India’s map in 1933 is its constitutional boundary.
The border standoff between Mizoram and Assam turned ugly on July 26, 2021 when police forces of both states had gunfights leading to the death of 7 people, including 6 policemen from Assam, and injuries to around 60 people.
Subsequently, the two northeastern states began high-level delegation talks from August 2021 to resolve the vexed border dispute.
Since then, both the delegations have held three rounds of talks and several virtual meetings on the border issue.
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In the last border talks held in Guwahati in November last year, both delegations had decided that Mizoram will furnish the list of villages, their areas, geo-spatial extent, and ethnicity of the people and other relevant information within three months to support its claim, which can be examined by setting up regional committees from both sides to arrive at an amicable resolution to the vexed border issue.
Last month, the Mizoram government had formed a study group headed by a senior professor from Mizoram University (MZU) to perform the task.
Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma had also met twice in New Delhi in November 2021 and September last year to find an amicable solution to the border dispute.
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