»No Free Movement Between India Myanmar Union Home Minister
No Free Movement Between India & Myanmar: Union Home Minister
The government put a halt to the Free Movement Regime on Thursday, which permits individuals from both countries to travel up to 16 kilometers without requiring any travel documents.
The government put a halt to the ‘Free Movement Regime’ on Thursday, which permits individuals from both countries to travel up to 16 kilometers without requiring any travel documents.
Taking to his official ‘X’ account, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is resolved to secure our borders. He also added that the Ministry of Home Affairs has decided that the Free Movement Regime will be scrapped to ensure the country’s internal security and to maintain the demographic structure of the northeastern states.
This comes two days after Shah declared that India would build a patrol track next to the barrier and wire the whole 1,643 km border with Myanmar. The discovery is related to the ethnic struggle that exists in Manipur between the Kuki-Zo tribes, who are primarily found in the hills and have ties to communities in Myanmar’s Chin State, and the Meitei, who make up the majority of the valley’s population.
The Home Minister claims that a 10-kilometer stretch of Moreh in Manipur has already been fenced in, and that two trial projects that each span one kilometer with a “hybrid surveillance system” are presently in operation.
Following last year’s ethnic unrest in Manipur, the FMR was suspended and border barriers were erected. The Meiteis and Kuki-Zo tribes are related to those in Myanmar’s Chin State. Tens of thousands of people were displaced and close to 200 people lost their lives in those battles.