Assam–Nagaland border row: Jorhat AJYCP demands commando deployment, BOPs
The demands were made to prevent encroachment of land belonging to Assam from the Nagaland side
A file image of officials inspecting the area in Dissoi Valley near Assam-Nagaland border (AT Photo)
Jorhat, July 7: The Jorhat district unit of Asom Jatiyabadi Yuba Chatra Parishad (AJYCP) has sought that the State government should set up new Border Outposts (BOPs) along the Assam-Nagaland border in the district and also deploy commando forces at vulnerable areas to prevent encroachment of land belonging to the State from the Nagaland side.
The students’ body informed that a memorandum containing six demands was sent to the Chief Minister through the Jorhat DC’s office on Saturday. The memorandum, submitted by the president and general secretary of the Jorhat unit of the students’ body, Ashim Jyoti Saikia and Biswajit Gayan, respectively, calls for initiation of immediate steps by the government to tackle ‘large-scale encroachment’ of Assam’s land by people from the neighbouring state.
Expressing serious concern over large areas of the three forests – Dissoi Valley Reserve Forest, Dissoi Reserve Forest and Tiru Hills Reserve Forest – off Mariani town reportedly being destroyed by people from the other side over the past several decades after Nagaland was carved out of Assam as a separate state in 1963, the students’ body alleged that rubber plantations have been set up in the encroached areas.
Seeking eviction drives in the encroached areas of these forests and subsequent carrying out of sapling plantation drives, the students’ body has urged upon the government to establish new BOPs and also deploy commando personnel at vulnerable areas to stop encroachment from the other side.
It may be mentioned that at present there are nine BOPs in the Mariani belt of the over 100 km-long Assam-Nagaland border in Jorhat district.
The other demands included intensifying of border patrols by the forest department and police, and relocating certain BOPs of Assam closer to the border. Another demand was for dismantling of the Chutaphala checkgate of the Nagaland government on Assam’s land on the Mariani-Mokokchung road.
Biswajit Gayan told The Assam Tribune that a delegation of the organisation is scheduled to visit the border areas under the jurisdiction of the Mariani Police Station on July 9 to talk to the people residing close to the inter-state border to know the latest scenario prevailing in those areas.
“We have been told by many residents of border villages and tea garden areas of encroachment carried out by Naga people and also of intimidation of our people. So we want to know about the latest situation in those areas,” Gayan stated.
It is pertinent to mention that due to the decades-old boundary row between Assam and Nagaland, untoward incidents have been occurring from time to time, resulting in tension flaring up at the border many a time and necessitating intervention by the district administrations of both sides and, at times, by both state governments.
The Jorhat district administration occasionally clamps dusk-to-dawn curfew on the Assam side of the inter-state border as a preventive security measure to maintain peace and tranquillity in the border belt.
It is pertinent to mention that a case is pending in the Supreme Court since 1988 to solve the vexed Assam-Nagaland border dispute.