Fresh border row as Assam arrests Mizoram cop

AIZAWL: Two months of relative calm on the restive Assam-Mizoram border were broken on Saturday after Assam police arrested a constable from the neighbouring state for “criminal trespass”, adding to tension over a 26-year-old

Mizo

villager being shot dead by suspected “non-tribal” criminals, reports HC Vanlalruata.

Mizoram officials said

Laldintluanga Ralte

of the India Reserve Police’s 1st Battalion was picked up while he was on duty at Zophai in the border district of Kolasib. He was taken to the Ramnathpur police station before being shifted to the Barak Valley town of

Hailakandi

.

The officer-in-charge of Bairabi police station in Mizoram said the constable had been booked under sections 447 (trespass) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. He is likely to be out on bail after being produced in a Hailakandi court, the officer said. There was no official statement from Assam police about the arrest of the Mizo constable.

Members of the student organisation

Mizo Zirlai Pawl

blocked NH-154, which connects Hailakandi district with Mizoram, from 4pm and clamped an “indefinite curfew” on movement of people from Bairabi town of Assam. On Friday morning, a resident of Mizoram was killed after being allegedly robbed of Rs 1 lakh.