‘Boundary issues with Assam to be sorted out of court’: Arunachal Pradesh CM

Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Pema Khandu said on Thursday that Assam and Arunachal have agreed in principle to sort out their inter-state boundary issues out-of-court.

Participating in a virtual meet convened by newly appointed DoNER (ministry of development of northeastern region) minister GK Reddy, Khandu said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah have stressed that the inter-state boundary issue should be resolved amicably out-of-court.

“Inter-state boundary issue has been long pending. I have discussed it with my Assam counterpart, Himanta Biswa Sarma, and we have agreed to go for an out-of-court solution to all issues related to our boundary,” he said.

“In fact, we have already started working at the ground. If everything goes well in the next few months we may see some concrete results towards instilling peace permanently along our boundaries,” Khandu added.

Assam shares an 804 kilometre-long boundary with Arunachal Pradesh. Though there was no dispute initially, over the years allegations of residents of one state encroaching land on the other have led to disputes and violence.

A suit has been pending in Supreme Court since 1989 on the issue.

The border issues between both states hit headlines last month after Kimin in Arunachal Pradesh, where Union defence minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated 12 roads in presence of CMs of both Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, was shown as Bilgarh in Assam.

After protests by several organizations in Arunachal Pradesh and Khandu and Union minister Kiren Rijiju pointing out the ‘serious mistake’, Border Roads Organisation (BRO), which had organised the event, tendered an unconditional apology for the ‘unintentional error’.

Besides Arunachal, Assam has long-standing boundary disputes with Mizoram, Nagaland and Meghalaya.