Aizawl, April 9: The Mizoram government is set to sign a peace accord with the Lalhmingthanga Sanate-led faction of the Hmar People’s Convention (Democratic), or HPC(D), on April 14, officials announced Thursday. This faction is the last active insurgent group in the state.

The decision was finalized during a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister K Sapdanga in Aizawl. According to preliminary plans, the memorandum of settlement (MoS) will be signed at Sakawrdai village in Aizawl district, bordering Manipur. The agreement will be signed between the state Home Secretary and HPC(D) president Lalhmingthanga Sanate, in the presence of senior officials and political leaders.

Following the signing, 43 cadres of HPC(D) will move into temporary housing arranged by the state government until the arms lay-down ceremony scheduled for April 30 at the police’s Central Training Institute in Sesawng, about 40 km from Aizawl.

The Sanate-led HPC(D) faction has been active since the mid-1990s, continuing the demand for an Autonomous District Council (ADC) for Hmar-populated areas in northern and northeastern Mizoram. While other factions signed peace accords in 1994 and 2018, Sanate’s group remained outside the process, occasionally resorting to extortion and sporadic violence.

The upcoming accord is expected to mark the end of decades of Hmar insurgency in Mizoram, bringing closure to a movement that began in 1986 with the formation of the Hmar People’s Convention.