Mizoram Proposes Official-Level Talks with Assam to Resolve Border Dispute

AIZAWL: The government of Mizoram has suggested conducting official-level talks with Assam in early April 2025 to resolve the 164.6 km-long border dispute, officials stated on Monday.

The move is geared towards settling long-standing territorial disputes between the two northeastern states.

A government official of Mizoram informed that the proposal puts forth an idea of discussing things in Guwahati in the first or second week of April. The objective is to solve technical and controversial problems prior to going for minister-level negotiations.

The two states had earlier conducted ministerial talks in Aizawl on August 9, 2024, during which they reiterated their resolve to keep the disputed border peaceful and stable. Nevertheless, regardless of the efforts, the fourth round of ministerial talks in August failed to make meaningful progress.

Officials opine that without previous official-level talks, negotiations were affected, and thus technical talks should be conducted first before the fifth round of ministerial-level talks is called.

The Aizawl ministerial meet was the first after the Zoram People's Movement (ZPM) of Chief Minister Lalduhoma took office in 2023. After the meeting, Assam's Border Protection and Development Minister Atul Bora had expressed hope that the conflict could be resolved and Mizoram Home Minister K Sapdanga too had shown optimism.

Mizoram has previously forwarded a list of 62 border villages in its own territory to Assam, according to what had been agreed to in the third ministerial meet in Guwahati during November 2022.

The contested zones are along Mizoram's Aizawl, Kolasib, and Mamit districts bordering Assam's Cachar, Karimganj, and Hailakandi districts. The most intense violence in the area took place on July 26, 2021, when Assam and Mizoram police forces fired at each other by Vairengte village on National Highway 306, in which six Assam Police personnel were killed.

The boundary conflict goes back in time, with the state of Mizoram laying claims to 509 square miles of reserved forest tract notified in 1875 through the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (BEFR) 1873 as part of its territory, while Assam looks to the Survey of India map of 1933 in determining its border.

The dispute goes back to 1972, when Mizoram was a Union Territory, and the Assam-Mizoram border was loosely defined under the North-East Areas Reorganisation Act, 1971, without proper demarcation.

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