Meghalaya Assembly polls: Mukroh villagers seek peaceful resolution to border row

An outward calm prevails in Mukroh village along the disputed Assam-Meghalaya inter-state boundary, with residents engaging in dance and merrymaking in election rallies as parties try to woo them ahead of the February 27 Assembly polls.

Only three months before, however, the quaint village lush with greenery was the site of a violent clash in which five Meghalaya residents and a forest guard from neighbouring Assam were killed. It erupted after the Assam forest guards intercepted a truck transporting illegally felled timber.

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B Lamare, an elderly woman from the village, said she wished the new government would resolve the dispute.

“Mukroh was never a part of Assam. We do not accept such claims of anyone. Those forming the new government should ensure there is no more bloodshed,” she said.

Like Lamare, most residents maintained that Mukroh is a part of Meghalaya and wished that the issue was resolved at the earliest, and that such violent incidents are never repeated.

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Political parties campaigning in the area also said resolving the vexed border dispute with Assam was their top agenda in the elections.

“We will bring a permanent solution to the Assam-Meghalaya border dispute if voted to power. This is our top agenda,” United Democratic Party’s (UDP) Mookaiaw MLA Nujorki Sungoh was quoted as saying by PTI before addressing an election rally at Barato, 3 km from Mukroh.

Mukroh falls under Mookaiaw Assembly constituency in the West Jaintia Hills district in eastern Meghalaya.

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The legislator said that talks between the two states have progressed well but the dispute in Mukroh and some other villages was yet to be resolved.

In Mukroh, however, the violent incident did not resonate in electioneering as people gathered in front of trucks and minivans waiting to transport them to election rallies, with some breaking into dance as music blared from the vehicles. NPP, UDP and Congress held rallies in the constituency on Friday.

After the Mukroh violence in November last year, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma alleged that Assam forest guards entered the state and resorted to unprovoked firing, while his Assam counterpart Himanta Biswa Sarma maintained they had acted in self-defence, and to protect government property.

Meghalaya and Assam have a longstanding dispute in at least 12 areas along the 884.9-km-long interstate border, and the location where the violence took place is one of them.

The two northeastern states had signed a memorandum of understanding in March last year in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah in New Delhi towards ending the dispute in six areas.

Meghalaya was carved out of Assam in 1972 and had since then challenged the Assam Reorganisation Act, 1971 which had demarcated the borders between the two states.

(With agency inputs)