Assam Police Open Fire Near Meghalaya Village; 6 Killed

What’s in today’s article:

• Assam-Meghalaya border dispute – About, disputed areas, efforts to resolve the dispute
• Assam-Meghalaya Border Pact – about, the agreement, way forward
• News Summary

Why In News?

• Six persons, including an Assam Forest Guard, were killed in a clash between Assam Police and a mob over an alleged timber-smuggling attempt across the inter-state border.
• This clash reignited the Assam-Meghalaya boundary dispute that was partially settled barely eight months ago.

Assam-Meghalaya border dispute:

• 
• During British rule, undivided Assam included present-day Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
• Meghalaya was carved out of Assam under the North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.
• Due to different interpretation of this act, it was challenged by both the parties which led to the boundary dispute between these two states.
• As a result, both sides have a longstanding dispute in 12 stretches of the 884-km-long shared border.

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Efforts to resolve the dispute

• The two States had in June 2021 adopted a give-and-take policy to start the process of resolving the boundary dispute.
• For this, they constituted three regional committees each.
• The draft resolution, released in March 2022, was prepared on the basis of the recommendations of these regional panels.

Assam-Meghalaya Border Pact

• In March 2022, Assam and Meghalaya partially resolved a 50-year-old border dispute in six of the 12 sectors along their 884-km boundary.
  • The two governments had taken up six of 12 disputed sectors in the first phase of discussions.
• In August, both the States decided to form regional committees.
  • The second round of discussions was set to commence by the end of this month.

The Agreement

• As per the agreement, out of the disputed 36.79 sq. km land, Assam will get 18.51 sq. km of the disputed areas and Meghalaya will get the remaining 18.28 sq. km.
• About 70% of the inter-State boundary has now become dispute-free with the signing of the agreement.
• The problem in the six other areas will be resolved in the near future.

What lies ahead?

• The freshly demarcated border will have to be passed by Parliament by amending the North Eastern Region (Reorganisation) Act, 1971.
• This will then have to be ratified by the legislative assemblies of both the states.

News Summary

• Five Meghalaya villagers were among six people killed in a clash between a mob and a contingent of police and forest guards from Assam in pursuit of a truck allegedly smuggling timber across the inter-state border.
• The incident took place in an area bordering West Karbi Anglong district of Assam and Mukroh village in Meghalaya’s West Jaintia Hill.

• This incident has the potential to derail the Assam-Meghalaya talks or delay a resolution in the border dispute between the two states.