Assam-Meghalaya governments agree to hand over Mukroh incident to CBI, resolves Hahim Sector border dispute

Meghalaya's Chief Minister, Conrad K Sangma, and Assam’s Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, convene a CM-Level meeting at the State Guest House in Guwahati over the ongoing border dispute.

In a joint press meeting, Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said, "As a confidence-building measure and not to put the respective officers of both the states in difficulty, we have decided to wind up the judicial commission ordered by both the states to enquire Mukroh incident. Further, both the government will now request the CBI to investigate the matter instead of the judicial commission and request CBI not to register the case either in Shillong or Guwahati but in a neutral place."

Further Himanta Biswa Sarma asserted that both judicial commissions were not able to make any significant progress into the matter as witnesses from both sides are not cooperating.

"In order to have a fair and impartial enquiry we decided that instead of pursuing judicial enquiry at the end of state governments let us refer to an independent agency and request them not to register the case either in Shillong or Guwahati," Himanta added.

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Himanta Biswa Sarma also said that in Khanduli PCR, Assam police have set up an outpost and in front of the outpost Meghalaya has another outpost making it an eye ball to eye ball confrontation, hence Assam police going forward will deploy CRPF in that outpost and Meghalaya will also take their respective outpost behind so that it goes to a neutral police force.

Both the governments have also decided to resolve three areas of dispute but the final modalities have to be found out by the regional committees and this will be done by the committees within the shortest possible time.

Regarding the six areas of dispute, where the issues have already been resolved, the Survey of India have completed their survey in Hahim and now border pillars will be erected to which both the state governments have accepted their positions.

In a joint press meet, Meghalaya CM Conrad Sangma said, "We are happy to inform the people of both Assam and Meghalaya that after a very long drawn exercise, we are on the verge of finalizing the boundary lines in the first six disputed areas for which we have already signed a MoU on the differences. In today's meeting, was approved and given a green signal to the Hahim sector where the survey has been conducted along with both the state officials and the line has been finalized."

Further, the rest five areas of difference again out of which three are very close to completion and by December 31, 2023, all the six areas where the MoU has been signed in the first phase, the actual line and demarcation as per the survey of India should be completed.

Sangma also asserted that both the states have also discussed on the other areas of differences wherein in three areas, both the states are moving at a fast pace to resolve the issues.