The porous India-Myanmar border in North East has been put under mounted vigil to check cross-border movement of militants and smuggling on arms into the insurgency-hit North East region through it.
“As a step towards fortifying the India-Myanmar border fencing is being raised along a 10-km stretch between Moreh and Tamu in Manipur by the Borer Roads Organisation (BRO) to check cross border movement of militants and illegal arms,” the GOC 3 Corps of Indian Army Lieutenant General N K Singh informed.
The 1643-km Indo-Myanmar border is characterised by rugged and thickly forested terrain and had remained hugely unmanned by security forces. Some parts of the border that touches eastern Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram are marked inaccessible thickly forested areas.
Smuggling of arms to India across the India-Myanmar border remains a concern though there has been mounted vigil. “Lots of groups based in the infamous ‘golden triangle’ are involved in the clandestine trade of weapons especially Chinese made arms to cater to the need of North East militants,” the Army commander said.
He, however claimed that smuggling in of weapons, especially small arms, to India through Myanmar border had reduced considerable of late due to mounted vigil by the Army, police and paramilitary forces that had led to recovery of average 100 weapons a year.
He said there was no report of involvement of any official agencies of China in the clandestine arms trade.
He further informed that there were camps of N-E militants in Myanmar. Some of these camps are of transitory in nature while some are bigger and permanent in nature having accommodation, habitat and training facility.
“We have taken up this issue with Myanmar authority which has been very cooperative. The issue has been discussed with Myanmar authority at various levels and a joint major operation was carried out some times back some time back and more such operations will be carried out as and when required. Some of the camps are there with local sanctions,” he informed.
These militants’ camps were close to the India-Myanmar border till six months back and now have been pulled back deeper inside Myanmar due to vigil mounted by Indian Army.
The Army commander denied reports about the commander in chief of the banned ULFA, Paresh Baruah shifting his base to Yunan province of China terming such reports as speculative in nature. He said there were agencies tracking the movement of the militant leader.
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