GUWAHATI: India’s Assam state said on Tuesday it will deploy 4,000 commandos to guard its border with a rival state after six police officers were killed in a gunbattle between the feuding neighbours.

More than 60 others were injured in the rare showdown on Monday on Assam’s border with Mizoram. The two have been wrangling over their border for decades.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma told reporters at Silchar, near where the battle was fought, that the “new commando battalion” would be deployed on the border.

Tensions had been building between the two states since last month when Mizoram alleged that Assam had encroached on its territory.

Assam in turn accused Mizoram villagers of encroaching instead on reserve forest land.

Federal Home Minister Amit Shah has sought to defuse the row but a solution to the long-standing dispute did not appear imminent.

Sarma, who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), said his government will petition the Supreme Court to ensure “not an inch of reserve forest is encroached upon”.

Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, who uses only one name, has accused Assam police of firing the first shots on Monday.

Published in Dawn, July 28th , 2021