“The HPC-D had recently approached the Mizoram government for talks and the latter agreed immediately,” a Mizoram home department official told IANS.
The official said that though details of the talks are yet to be finalised, the separatists have not put forward any pre-condition.
The Mizoram government has constituted a committee, comprising police and civil administration officials, under the chairmanship of Home Secretary Lalmalsawma, to conduct the talks.
HPC-D is a militant outfit operating mainly in Mizoram and neighbouring Manipur. It has been demanding a separate Hmar Autonomous District Council, comprising Hmar tribal-inhabited areas in the north and northeastern eastern part of mountainous Mizoram.
The Hmar tribals live mostly in the hills of south Manipur, parts of Mizoram, southern Assam and parts of Meghalaya and Tripura, besides Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of southeast Bangladesh. In 1987, the Hmars launched an insurgent movement demanding a Hmar Autonomous District Council, until a ceasefire was signed in 1992.
A radical section split off from the movement after the ceasefire, calling itself the Hmar People’s Convention-Democrats. The group, involved in cases of kidnapping and extortion, has been active since 2003.
