Mizoram reasserts 1875 notification as official boundary with Assam amid border row
Home Minister Sapdanga said that state govt formed a study team to task with collecting important documents to strengthen its claim
Officials from both the states during a meet at Bairabi near the Assam border, on August 18. (Photo: DDNewsMizoram/X)
Aizawl, August 27: Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga, on Wednesday, reaffirmed the government's stand that its boundary with Assam is based on a notification issued in 1875.
Addressing the assembly on the first day of the monsoon session, Sapdanga said that the Mizoram government approved the areas demarcated in the “Inner Line on the Southern Frontier of the District of Cachar”, which was notified on August 20, 1875, as the state's actual boundary with Assam.
Assam, however, asserts that the border defined by a map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 is its constitutional boundary with Mizoram.
The Home Minister said that the Mizoram government formed a study team to task with collecting important documents to strengthen the state's claim.
According to the home minister, both Mizoram and Assam have held talks on more than 10 occasions since 1988 to amicably resolve the vexed border dispute.
The last official-level discussion between the two states on the boundary issue was held in Guwahati on April 25 to find an amicable solution to the long-standing dispute, he said.
Sapdanga said that the next round of official-level talks has been proposed to be held in Mizoram, but the exact date of that is yet to be finalised.
Sapdanga also said that the state government has constructed and maintained border roads along the state border with Assam.
However, it has stopped maintaining or using some of those roads, as it can induce violation of the status quo and an agreement signed by the two states in previous talks.
The assertion came days after a fresh tension on the Mizoram-Assam border.
On August 15, police and forest department officials from Assam reportedly entered Saikhawthlir village in west Mizoram's Mamit district and damaged around 290 rubber plants being cultivated by the villagers. The area was claimed by both states.
The incident sparked tensions along the inter-state border, which was soon defused following a meeting between district officials and police officers of the two northeastern neighbours.
Three Mizoram districts — Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit — share a 164.6 km long border with Assam's Cachar, Sribhumi and Hailakandi districts.
PTI