Normalcy back in border area

Aizawl, Jun 21 (UNI) Normalcy has returned to the Asom-Mizoram border since last night after the first Indian Reserved Police troops from Mualvum dismantled the ''waiting shed'' constructed by the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (MZL) activists at the ''disputed'' area.

''Tension rose yesterday as the Asom police came to stop the student activists from constructing the shed. However, things returned to normal since last evening,'' Kolasib Additional SP Lalremmuana told UNI today.

About 100 activists of MZP, the state's largest students' body, carried out the construction of what they called the ''Zorun''(Mizo house), a waiting shed, at what is claimed to be the true territory of Mizoram, which had allegedly been gradually occupied by Assam in the course of time.

Despite the Assam police standing guard a few metres away, the MZP activists could accomplish their mission. However, the waiting shed was dismantled by the IR troops no sooner than the youths left.

What the MZP, as well the political parties, including the ruling Mizo National Front (when it was in the Opposition) claim as the actual boundary between the two states is that of the Inner Line Regulation of 1875.

According to historical sources, Mizo chief Suakpuilala and Cachar DC Edgar reached an agreement on January 16, 1871, following which the boundary line was drawn. After Mizo warriors continued raids on Asom's tea estates, the British India came up with the Inner Line Regulation in 1875, based on the boundary line drawn in 1871.

After Mizoram came under Asom as a district council, after India's independence in 1947, the territory was gradually occupied by Asom.

Tension have occasionally heightened at the ''disputed'' border in the past. Despite the Union Home Ministry's suggestion to hold a chief minister-level talk between the two states to resolve the ''border dispute'', no development has so far taken place. The ruling MNF party had been subjected to constant pressure to find solutions to the dispute.

UNI