Aizawl: Mizoram and Assam will hold ministerial-level talks to resolve a long-standing border dispute between the two northeastern states on Friday, an official of Mizoram home department said on Thursday.
The delegations of both states will hold a meeting at the state guest house in Aizawl at 4 pm, the official said.
The Mizoram delegation would be headed by Sapdanga, while the Assam team would be led by its border protection and development minister Atul Bora, who will be accompanied by home department officials from the neighbouring state, he said.
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The Assam delegation will arrive in Aizawl on Friday afternoon, he said.
Both the delegations will also jointly address a press conference at 6 pm, according to the official.
This will be the first border talks between Mizoram and Assam after the Zoram People’s Movement (ZPM) headed by Chief Minister Lalduhoma came to power in December last year.
Bora and his team will also pay a courtesy call on Lalduhoma before departing for Guwahati on Saturday, the official said.
Mizoram home minister K. Sapdanga had earlier expressed optimism that the upcoming border talks may yield positive results to bring an amicable solution to the vexed border dispute.
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He had also said that both states adhered to the status quo on the disputed areas after the border talks began in August 2021.
Although Lalduhoma and his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma had met in Guwahati in February and agreed to hold talks between the two states in March, discussions have been delayed due to the Lok Sabha elections and other reasons, according to officials.
Three Mizoram districts- Aizawl, Kolasib and Mamit- share a 164.6 km border with Assam’s Cachar, Karmganj and Hailankandi districts.
The border dispute between the two neighbouring states stemmed mainly from two colonial demarcations – 1875 and 1933.
Mizoram claims that 509 square miles area of the inner line reserved forest, notified in 1875 under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) 1873, falls within its territory, while Assam, on the other hand, regarded the map prepared by the Survey of India in 1933 as its constitutional boundary.
Vast areas within the inner line reserved forest now fall under Assam. Similarly, a certain extent of the area, as per the 1933 demarcation, is now on the Mizoram side.
There is no ground demarcation of boundaries between the two states.
The border dispute between Mizoram and Assam had taken an ugly turn in July 2021 when police forces of the two states exchanged fire at the inter-state boundary, leading to the death of six policemen and a civilian from Assam.
More than 60 people were also injured in the violent clash that took place in the disputed area near Mizoram’s Vairengte village.
The violent clash took place during the rule of Mizo National Front (MNF), an ally of the BJP, which is currently in power in Assam.
The two states have held several rounds of talks, including three ministerial-level meetings since August 2021 and agreed to maintain peace along the boundary and resolve the dispute through dialogue.
In the last border talks held in Guwahati in November 2022, 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 issues.
Accordingly, Mizoram submitted its claim identifying 62 villages in the disputed area as being located within its territory or the extent of the inner line reserved forest.