At 2 am on 17 August 2021, a civilian from Mizoram was injured after the Assam Police opened fire in Aitlang, an area in Mizoram bordering Assam. According to H Lathlangliana, the deputy commissioner of Kolasib district, under whose jurisdiction Aitlang falls, the Assam Police indiscriminately opened fire on three Mizo civilians who had gone to collect meat from a friend in Bilaipur village, on the Assam side of the border. According to Assam Police, the firing was in response to miscreants from Mizoram who shot at construction workers building a road near Bilaipur. This incident came three weeks after a major clash in Vairengte, a border village in Mizoram, between Assam Police and Mizoram Police that left six Assamese police officers dead.
Mizoram and Assam have had a border dispute for several decades now which has often ended in brief clashes. These clashes were always mild, and politicians from both states were quick to ease tensions. In contrast, after the violence on 26 July, politicians from both Mizoram and Assam did little to ease the tension and instead raised further allegations against the other. Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’s chief minister, claimed that the incident was not sparked by a border dispute, but because Mizos were involved in trafficking drugs, and because the Mizoram government had aided refugees from Myanmar.
By 5 August, officials from both states had met multiple times and agreed to a détente. In a widely reported press conference that day in Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, officials from both governments told reporters that the incident was “in the past,” and did not respond to questions about who was to be held accountable for the violence. Officials continued to downplay the severity of the crisis over the next week.
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