Firing along Assam-Arunachal border over road construction

North Lakhimpur (Assam), Jan. 27 (PTI): Tension flared up over road construction on a disputed stretch of Assam-Arunachal border at Gogamukh in Dhemaji district, after locals objected to the road being built by Arunachal state government, leading to firing in the air by a contractor, officials here said on Thursday.

The incident took place at Hime Basti area under Assam’s Gogamukh police station on Wednesday evening, a senior official said.

“Local villagers from Assam obstructed to the construction of the road by Arunachal government. When they went to the site to protest, the contractor involved with the construction fired one round in the air,” he added.

Angry with the response, the people from Assam forcibly stopped the work, damaged a few vehicles and set ablaze the temporary camp built for the road construction gang, the official said.

“On being informed, a team from Assam Police rushed to the spot. We are now dominating the area so that no untoward incident takes place,” a police official said.

Response from the Arunachal state government on the incident is still awaited.

The fracas over the border road takes place just two days after Assam and Arunachal Pradesh on Monday decided to conduct a ground level survey on status of the inter-state boundary to resolve the vexed border row at a chief ministerial level meeting.

On January 24, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma held a meeting with his Arunachal Pradesh counterpart Pema Khandu to discuss the border issue.

Assam and Arunachal Pradesh share a 804.1-km border in Udalguri, Sonitpur, Biswanath, Lakhimpur, Dhemaji, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh and Charaideo districts. There are 1,200 points of disputes along the inter-state border between the two states.

Arunachal Pradesh was a centrally-administered region initially after Independence and became a Union Territory later, before attaining full statehood in 1987.