Staff Reporter
ITANAGAR, Nov 28: The residents of Uli village in Kangku circle of Lower Siang district have alleged that officials and police personnel from Assam violated the Assam-Arunachal boundary status quo on Friday.
Sources in Kangku informed that Dhemaji (Assam) DSP Naba Bora, accompanied by Dhemaji CO Mandira Borah, police personnel and other officials dismantled the private fencing of one Jumya Tao, a teacher, and told him not to erect fencing around his paddy field.
The Assam officials and police personnel were confronted by the residents of Uli village and the landowner, stating that the officials had ventured into Arunachal’s territory and violated the status quo. However, there was no report of violence during the confrontation.
The DSP and the CO were not reachable for a comment.
Agitated over what he termed “brazen violation of the status quo,” Kenyom Dabi, chairman of the Galo-Mishing Coordination Committee, strongly condemned
the incident and stated that “such violation of the status quo by Assam’s officials and police personnel would jeopardize the peaceful atmosphere along the boundary and sow mistrust among the residents of both sides.”
Dabi further stated that the status quo should be respected by the people on either side of the boundary.
The Kangku CO and the Lower Siang DSP had rushed to the spot to verify the incident, and interacted with the locals.
As recently as on 12 October, there was a high-level meeting between the two states to resolve the boundary issue. It was attended by the chief secretaries of Assam and Arunachal. Both the states had decided to observe the status quo and hold interstate coordination meetings on a regular basis to resolve the decades-old boundary dispute between the two states.
