GUWAHATI: The tension on the Assam-Mizoram border is far from over.
The miscreants triggered a blast at an Assam government-run lower primary school in Hailakandi district on Friday night. The site of the incident is less than a kilometer from the “natural” border as the crow flies.
Senior officials of district police and civil administration visited the site to take stock of the incident, the police said.
“The incident occurred at around 11-11:30 pm yesterday. A wall of the school building was partially damaged. The locals heard an explosion and informed the police,” Hailakandi SP Gaurav Upadhyay told The New Indian Express.
The area falls under the Gutguti border outpost of the Assam Police. The SP said immediately after receiving information, senior officers of the police and civil administration rushed to the site.
“The matter is being investigated. Our officers are still at the site. There was no major damage to property but since a chance was taken, we are seriously investigating it,” Upadhyay said.
The Dhaleswari river is the natural boundary of the two states in the area. The aerial distance from the river to the school will be 800 metres to 1 km inside Assam, the SP said.
The incident comes on the heels of the July 26 interstate border violence that had left six Assam Police personnel dead and scores of others, including an SP, injured.
Earlier this year, the miscreants had blown off two other government schools, one in Hailakandi and another in neighbouring Cachar district.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told the state Assembly on Friday that the British administration had in 1870 given a forest to the Lushai Hills (present-day Mizoram). The forest was bifurcated in 1932 with one portion going to Assam and the other to Mizoram.
“When Mizoram was made a Union Territory in 1972, it was decided that the 1932 boundary will be its boundary. During the (signing off) Mizo peace accord, that very boundary was agreed to be made Mizoram’s boundary. Based on this boundary, Mizoram was created a state in 1987,” Sarma had stated.