Aizawl/Hailakandi: Three weeks after a violent clash between police forces of Assam and Mizoram, tension once more escalated at the border of the two states. It happened after an incident of firing on the disputed inter-state border again. Mizoram alleged that personnel of the Assam police fired on its civilians injuring one. However, the neighbouring state claimed that the men in uniform only returned the fire after miscreants from the other side of the border sprayed bullets on them.
Seven people including six Assam police personnel were killed and over 50 others injured in the clash between forces of the two North-eastern states July 26. A process of rapprochement is currently on.
Mizoram’s Kolasib district Deputy Commissioner H Lalthlangliana told this agency that the firing incident occurred at around 2.00am Tuesday morning. It took place at the disputed Aitlang area bordering Assam’s Hailakandi district when three residents of Vairengte town went there to collect meat from a friend, a resident of Bilaipur in Assam, who invited them to come. One person was injured in the firing by Assam Police personnel who were guarding the inter-state border, he claimed.
Hailakandi SP Gaurav Upadhyay said that an exchange of firing took place but declined to share details. “No casualty has been reported on any side,” he said.
A senior district official, however, said that miscreants from the Mizoram side showered bullets in darkness from the top of Darasing Hills. They fired when workers were constructing a road leading to the border from Bilaipur under the MGNREGA scheme. “In reply to the firing from the Mizoram side, Assam Police personnel also fired several rounds,” the official informed. “Huge security forces have been deployed in the area,” he added.
Two days after the July 26 stand-off, it was decided at a meeting convened by the Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi that a neutral central force will be deployed along the disturbed Assam-Mizoram border. Chief Secretaries and DGPs of the two states attended the meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla. State police forces, however, have continued to guard the border.
