Zoramathanga accepts ILR 1875 as original border

Aizawl, July 14 (UNI) Former(MNF) Underground Welfare Society (FUWS) today alleged that since the then Mizo National Front leadership had accepted the 'imposed' boundary in the MNF-India peace agreement, Mizoram has become more than 4,000 sq km smaller.

Incidentally, Chief Minister Zoramthanga haD accepted the Inner Line Regulation, also Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation Act, 1875, as the original boundary between Assam and Mizoram.

To the representatives of political parties and the state's largest NGOs - Mizo Zirlai(students) Pawl, Young Mizo Association, Mizo Hmeichhe(women) Insuihkhawm Pawl and Mizoram Upa (senior citizens) Pawl - who submitted their recent resolutions on the border dispute to him yesterday, the chief minister reportedly admitted that Mizoram had no boundary other than that of the Inner Line Regulation, 1875, that safeguarding it is the responsibility of the Mizos.

Zoramthanga had also reportedly assured the NGOs that his government had taken steps to ensure that the forest reserved area currently under the control of the Cachar district DFO is taken over by the rightful owner which is the Mizoram Forests department and if it is necessary, the matter would be intimated to the Central government.

''I will try to meet the Assam chief minister solely on this subject. I would also request you to have important documents ready so that the boundary commission, when it is constituted, can have ready reference to what we have to say,'' Zoramthanga was quoted as saying to the representatives by a statement of the Mizo Zirlai Pawl, which spearheaded the forum.

Meanwhile, the FUWS said, "It is time that the Mizoram government put up a strong fight with all its might to get back the more than 4,000 sq km it had lost (to Asom) because the MNF accepted the imposed boundary in its peace agreement with the Centre in 1986." ''Unless the inhabitants of the disputed land were evicted, or they leave at their own will, or a heavy struggle to get back the forest reserve area, we are not likely to get back the land by the sole means of the chief minister's diplomacy,'' an FUWS statement said today.

The FUWS also voiced the urgency to deploy heavy police forces at the border as the Assam government has taken steps to evict Mizo residents from the area.

UNI