Mizoram, Assam to hold official-level boundary talks on April 25: Minister

Aizawl, Officials of Mizoram and Assam will meet on April 25 to discuss the long-standing boundary dispute between the two northeastern states, a minister said on Monday.

Mizoram Home minister K Sapdanga told PTI that the proposed official-level talks will be held in Guwahati and Mizoram is yet to finalise the names of members of the state delegation.

He said that the next round of ministerial-level talks will be decided later based on the outcome of the official-level talks.

Mizoram officials said that the state delegation is likely to be headed by Home secretary Vanlalmawia.

The Assam government had earlier proposed to hold official-level talks in the third week of March, which the Mizoram government had declined due to the assembly session and visit of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.

Three Mizoram districts - Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit share a 164.6 km long border with Assam's Cachar, Karimganj and Hailakandi districts.

The decades-old border dispute mainly stemmed from two conflicting colonial-era demarcations - one from 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation and another from 1933.

Mizoram claims that 509 square miles of the Inner Line Reserved Forest delineated in 1875 under the BEFR as its legitimate area or boundary.

In contrast, Assam asserts the border defined by a 1933 map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 as its constitutional boundary.

As a result, both states lay claim to overlapping areas, with no ground demarcation conducted till date.

The dispute escalated into violence on several occasions and on July 26, 2021, near Mizoram's Vairengte village, a clash between police forces of both states resulted in seven fatalities and numerous injuries.

Since August 2021, both states have held four rounds of ministerial-level talks, besides negotiations and virtual meetings at official and border district administration levels to resolve the decades-old border dispute.

In the last talks held in Aizawl on August 9 last year, which was attended by K Sapdanga and Assam's Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora, both the delegations agreed to continue to observe conditions agreed in the previous parleys, including maintaining peace along the inter-state border.

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