Centre To Meet Assam, Mizoram Officials, Police Chiefs Over Border Row

A dawn-to-dusk bandh has been called in the entire Barak Valley region in Assam, with the Barak Democratic Front demanding a permanent solution to the border row

The Home Ministry will today meet senior Assam and Mizoram officials - chief secretaries and DGPs (Director General of Police) - in the wake of violence along the states' shared border on Monday that claimed the lives of six policemen and a civilian, and injured over 50 people. Home Ministry Secretary Ajay Bhalla will chair the meeting that will discuss the border dispute and sudden escalation of violence. The meeting will, it is hoped, be the first step towards restoring a degree of peace along the Assam-Mizoram border, where an uneasy calm holds for now. The centre has said it can only facilitate a settlement in case of border disputes between states, underlining that these can only be resolved with the co-operation of the concerned governments. There are seven such disputes, and Assam is involved in four of these. In addition to Mizoram, the northeastern state has border disputes with Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya.