The proposed peace talks between the Mizoram Government and the Manipur-based Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic), HPC (D), scheduled to be held before Christmas has been deferred, the State Home Department officials informed.
The State Home Department said the ‘framework agreement’ drafted during the last round of official level talks was still with Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla.
A committee has been formed to look into the political aspects of the proposed framework agreement and the process is still one, Mizoram Home Department officials said.
The Chief Minister himself is heading the committee.
The official level talks, which began on August 10 last year and ended on October 22 last, were to be elevated to a political level, after points of the framework agreement were deliberated in detail and a general agreement reached between the two parties.
Giving more political and financial autonomy to the Sinlung Hills Development Council (SHDC), proposed to be rechristened as ‘Sinlung Hills Council’, was among the main points of the agreement.
The SHDC was created comprising areas adjoining Manipur in accordance with the accord signed in 1994 between the erstwhile underground HPC and the Mizoram Government.
The HPC was demanding a separate autonomous district council under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution for the Hmar community concentrated in the northeastern part of the state adjoining Manipur, before the accord was signed.
The HPC (D) was formed after the surrender of the HPC cadres to the authorities, by some leaders who were not satisfied with the terms of the agreement and continued to demand a separate autonomous district council under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
The outfit, which had revived the demand for autonomy since 1995, recently agreed to drop the demand paving the way for a solution to the Hmar impasse.
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