GUWAHATI: Assam Congress MLA Rupjyoti Kurmi narrowly escaped unhurt after he was fired upon by Naga miscreants on the Assam-Nagaland border on Thursday, May 27. The incident occurred when he visited the Disai Valley Reserve Forest in Mariani, to address issues of a land dispute with Nagaland.
On the day of the MLA's visit, he was accompanied by a posse of officers from the Mariani Police Station. The entourage was then fired upon by unidentified men from the Nagaland border. "There is a continuous dispute going on in the area and I visited to check the situation. They fired upon us and we somehow escaped," Kurmi told G Plus.
The issue of encroachment has been acknowledged by a forest official of the Jorhat Forest Department. "This has been ongoing for some time and the area is volatile even for officials. They have installed permanent settlement in the Assam side of the border," the official told G Plus.
Leader of Opposition (LoP) Debabrata Saikia has claimed government apathy on the matter. "Till date, the government has not taken any action in this regard. So this kind of thing happened today. I have urged the Government of Assam to take concrete steps in the wake of illegal land grabbing incident on the Assam-Naga border in addition to investigating the incident soon," added Saikia.