GUWAHATI: At least 18 people were injured, four of them critically, after unidentified miscreants from Arunachal Pradesh opened fire on residents of an Assam village along the inter-state border in Dhemaji district on Monday. The incident is the latest flare-up over competing land claims along the disputed frontier.Police said the firing took place on Monday morning at Mingmang Badati in Gogamukh revenue circle, following a dispute over alleged encroachment by people from Arunachal Pradesh on land claimed by Assam.According to preliminary information, the miscreants opened indiscriminate fire, targeting residents on the Assam side, a senior police officer said. Security has since been stepped up in the area.All the injured were initially taken to Gogamukh Rural Hospital. Seven were later referred to Dhemaji Civil Hospital in critical condition, and four were subsequently shifted to Assam Medical College and Hospital in Dibrugarh for advanced treatment, officials said.Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said the chief secretaries of the two states were in talks and that the directors general of police were coordinating to bring down tensions.“Assam Police reinforcement has reached the location. We need to de-escalate the situation and find out the perpetrators. I have directed the Assam Police that under no circumstance, Assam should lose even an inch of its land,” Sarma said in the morning soon after the incident was reported.Later in the evening, Sarma described the incident as “localised” and said the situation had been brought under control.“There is nothing to do at the state level as such. The situation has been promptly brought under control and the tension has been defused,” he said.Sarma said education minister Ranoj Pegu had been deputed to engage with Arunachal Pradesh govt to resolve immediate differences. He added that Assam’s chief secretary and DGP were also in touch with their counterparts in Arunachal Pradesh.The latest violence comes amid a long-pending boundary dispute between the two states, which share an 804-km border.The dispute traces back to the reorganisation of the northeast after Independence. Arunachal Pradesh, then known as North-East Frontier Agency, was initially administered by Centre and later became a Union Territory before attaining statehood in 1987. After statehood, a tripartite committee recommended transferring certain territories from Assam to Arunachal Pradesh. Assam contested the recommendations, and the boundary dispute is now pending before Supreme Court.Assam govt told the state assembly on July 29 that 16,144.01 hectares of Assam land were under Arunachal Pradesh’s control across seven Assam districts — Sonitpur, Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Charaideo.Arunachal Pradesh has also made claims over areas along the boundary. Assam govt officials said Arunachal Pradesh claims 858.91 sq km of territory in the disputed stretches.In recent years, the two govts have moved towards a negotiated settlement, setting up regional committees to examine claims on the ground and consult local communities. The process received a major push with Namsai Declaration of July 15, 2022, signed by Sarma and Arunachal Pradesh CM Pema Khandu.
