Did vested non-state actors trigger Mizoram-Assam border clash

Guwahati, July 28: Did civilians in battle fatigues turn up at the border and triggered the clash between Mizoram and Assam in which five police personnel were killed. Assam Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma said that his government's crackdown on narcotics smugglings and the new law restricting cattle transportation through its territory may have been the trigger for the clash.

Sarma said that the drugs route originates in Myanmar and travels through Mizoram and Assam's Barak Valley all the way to Punjab. He urged his Mizoram counterpart Zoramthanga to probe how civilians could have landed up in battle fatigues and bullet-proof vests at the border and attack the policemen with sniper rifles. I think it should be probed and I have video evidence that vested non-state actors entered the fray, he also. Added.

He also said that he had strong reasons to suspect that some decisions by the Assam government in the past two months had angered non-state elements in Mizoram. I told the Mizoram government that Assam cannot allow these people from Myanmar to settle in the Dima Hasao district without the Centre's explicit approval. This may have provoked a section of them, he added.