'Assam, Mizoram can approach Supreme Court, Centre to resolve border dispute’: Legal experts

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma pays tribute to six cops killed in border clash, at SP office in Cachar district, on Tuesday. Pic/PTI

The long-standing border dispute between Assam and Mizoram can be resolved either by the Supreme Court or the Centre, legal experts said on Tuesday while observing that the violent border conflict between the two was "ugliest manifestation of the insurrection". One of the experts called the brewing border dispute as "a failure of the Constitutional machinery".

6 killed in clash

Five Assam police personnel were killed on Monday while defending the "constitutional boundary" of the state with Mizoram and more than 60 people hurt in a sudden escalation of the border dispute, officials said. A civilian also died.

President's rule

While senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi and Assam's standing counsel Debojit Borkakati said the Centre should intervene and take steps for a peaceful settlement, another senior lawyer Dushyant Dave was of the view that both the states should be put under the President's Rule. "If these states had any grievances, they should have addressed them by bringing appropriate suits before the Supreme Court. It is their right. They should have first moved the court and sought some relief against each other," Dave said.

‘Full demarcation'

BJP leader Mmhonlumo Kikon, an MLA in the Nagaland Assembly and his party's in-charge for Mizoram, on Tuesday pitched for full demarcation of the border between Assam and Mizoram as a durable solution to the dispute between the two states.

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said the state will abide by any law enacted by Parliament that makes it even cede its land to another state but till then it will not allow even an "inch to be encroached".

Meanwhile, the Assam has declared a three-day mourning from Tuesday to condole the death, while locals in the state's Cachar district threatened an economic blockade of Mizoram.

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