Mizoram arming civilians: Assam
Sarma says a contingent of 300 personnel deployed at disputed sectors
Amid the ongoing attempts by the Central government to resolve the border dispute between Assam and Mizoram, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday accused the Mizoram government of arming its civilians with weapons and ammunitions for two months.
Asserting it was for the first time that the Assam police has succeeded in retrieving its land encroached by Mizoram since November 2020, the Chief Minister told reporters a contingent of 300 security personnel-led by IGP Anurag Agarwal had been deployed in all five disputed sectors of the Assam-Mizoram border.
Assam also has ongoing border disputes with several of its neighbouring states — including Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya — and government sources expressed fears that these could lead to flareups unless they were defused in time.
Top government sources said, meanwhile, that Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga have been summoned by Union home minister Amit Shah for a meeting on the border conflict in New Delhi on Thursday.
The chief secretaries and DGPs of both states were in New Delhi on Wednesday for a meeting with the Union home secretary to find an amicable solution to the problem.
Earlier, Sarma also claimed his government’s crackdown on narcotics smuggling and the new law restricting cattle transportation through its territory might have been the trigger for “non-state actors” in Mizoram to engineer Monday’s flareup
in which five policemen were killed.
Expressing deep anguish over the incident, Sarma said: “How could civilians in battle fatigues and bulletproof vests turn up at
the border to attack our policemen with sniper rifles. I have video evidence. I think it should be investigated whether certain vested non-state actors entered the fray.”
Sarma posted some videos in the social media of heavily armed Mizo youths positioning on some hilltops targeting Assam police personnel.