Gogoi to set up Border Development Council, protection force

Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today said his government would set up Border Development Council and Border Protection Battalion to ensure development and security along the state's borders.
These would be done as "we are not happy with the functioning of the neutral force, CRPF, which has not performed their duty with responsibility along the Assam-Nagaland border," Gogoi said.
"Nobody had asked for removal of neutral forces for the last 35 years but now I am asking for it and will also ask for deployment of the BSF," he told reporters here after returning from a relief camp at violence-ridden Uriamghat in Golaghat district.

Since 1979, Assam-Nagaland border is divided into six sectors -- A, B, C, D, E and F -- falling under Sibsagar, Jorhat, Golaghat and Karbi Anglong districts.
The police of both the states cannot be present there and normal day-to-day security is given by a "neutral force".
The Chief Minister said he has already written to the Prime Minister and Union Home Minister in this regard and urged them to resolve the border dispute at the earliest.

People are now also asking for deployment of Assam Police along the border "which proves that though a section criticises me but they also have faith in me and in my government".

The state government would take up initiatives for development along the border areas, particularly construction of roads, he said.
Altogether, nine people were killed on August 12 allegedly by miscreants from neighbouring Nagaland and nearly 10,000 people fled their homes in seven villages of Golaghat district and took shelter in relief camps set up by district administration.