Over 30 village chieftains from villages bordering Assam and Nagaland will hold a reconciliation meeting on September 22 with a view to bringing about a permanent peace among them. The venue of the meeting will be announced later.
Most of the chieftains will be from Nagaland, while the remaining ones are from some villages in Golaghat district of Assam.
It may be recalled that on August 12, militants from Nagaland had sneaked into the villages in Golghat and mowed down over 13 Assamese villagers. They also torched hundreds of houses in these villages. Today, over 10,000 families in the district are rendered homeless.
Though over 40,000 villagers had returned to their villages, some others are still staying in the makeshift relief camps simply because they have no home.
There were curfews and heavy deployment of central forces in the affected areas. Charges of brutalities were levelled against the Assam police.
There were video clippings showing such excesses on the civil populance. Although the Assam Government said that rubber bullets were used, reporters had recovered empty cartridges of live bullets.
Huge swathes of territory in Assam are allegedly encroached by the Nagaland villagers. This is hotly denied saying that those disputed villages have been within Nagaland since time immemorial. In the past, there had been such border clashes. This time both the governments are planning to restore peace on a permanent basis. But the territorial dispute is something the village chieftains cannot amicably settle.
