Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Thursday met the Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland over the recent clash along the Assam-Nagaland border even as curfew continued and the Army flag-marched in the troubled Golaghat district of Assam, which had witnessed violent clashes between the police and agitators for the last two days killing three people in police firing and injuring over 30 others.
Three people were killed and 14 others were injured at Rongajan area in the district on Wednesday after police resorted to firing to control an angry mob agitating against police atrocities and set at least two vehicles, including one police van, on fire and attacked the police and security personnel.
“While two of them died on the spot on Wednesday due to firing, one injured girl died late last night while being shifted to Guwahati Medical College from Jorhat Medical College for better treatment,” said Assam Additional Director General of Police (law and order) AP Raut, adding that this has put the death toll of Wednesday’s incident at three.
He said that on Thursday also there were police firing near Numaligarh as group of people defied indefinite curfew, which had been in force since Wednesday evening, resulting in minor injury of one youth.
Normal life also came to a halt on Thursday across the State following a 12-hour bandh called by the State’s regional political party Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) to protest the Government’s failure to protect people along the Assam-Nagaland border and over the Central Government’s silence regarding the issue.
Rijiju, who met Chief Ministers of Assam and Nagaland on Thursday, said that both the States have agreed to resolve the border row through a joint mechanism and added that the Centre would extend all possible help and support to both the Governments to contain the situation.
“We want early restoration of peace and tranquility in the violence affected areas. The Centre would extend all possible help towards this end,” Rijiju said.
Underscoring the need for people to people contact at the local level, Rijiju said that such efforts would remove misgivings and help to build bridges of understanding between the people living along the inter-State border. “People to people contact would remove the lack of confidence on the ground level. Frequent meetings would help to bring about better understanding,” he said.
“The decision to form a joint mechanism to resolve the border issues is a step in the right direction,” he said while adding that both the States have also resolved to provide adequate compensation to the displaced people.
Rijiju, however, appealed to the agitators not to resort to economic blockade causing inconvenience and hardship to the people of neighbouring States.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said the first priority was to restore peace and tranquility and to send back the displaced people to their respective homes. “We have built up our efforts to instill confidence among the affected people and to restore normalcy in the trouble-torn areas along the inter-State border,” he added.
Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang also said that both the sides are in constant touch with each after the August 12 incident and talks are going on both at the political and administrative level. “We will continue with our dialogue at all levels to resolve the long pending border issues and to contain the situation,” he added.
Zeliang pointed that his Government has already constituted an inquiry committee to go into the entire incident to arrive at the bottom of the truth. The Chief Minister said that his Government has apprehended 15 people who were allegedly involved in the incident.
The Nagaland Chief Minister appreciated the efforts taken by his counterpart to bring the situation under control.Both the Chief Ministers assured that they would ensure the security of the people of both the neighbouring States from threat and intimidation. Gogoi and Zeliang appealed to the protestors to ‘calm down’ and to help the administration in restoring peace and tranquility in the affected areas.
Both the Chief Ministers said that they are one in their opinion that the CRPF must be vested with more powers to deal with any exigency effectively.