India to end free movement with Myanmar

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) - Amid the ongoing ethnic conflict in Myanmar, India has decided to end the free movement arrangement between India and the Southeast Asian nation, the country’s home minister said on Thursday.

Home Minister Amit Shah said the government has decided that the free movement arrangement between India and Myanmar will be scrapped “to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s northeastern states bordering Myanmar.”

He added that the Indian Foreign Ministry was currently in the process of scrapping such an arrangement.

The free movement arrangement allows citizens living within 16 kilometers (around 10 miles) on both sides of the border to border passes to enter and exit the two countries.

India has already announced that it will fence the border with conflict-hit neighbor Myanmar. India shares a 1,643 kilometers (1,020 miles) long border with Myanmar which passes through several states.

Thousands of people, including security personnel, from Myanmar, which is entangled in an internal ethnic conflict, have so far crossed into India and Bangladesh.

Indian and Bangladeshi foreign ministers on Wednesday during the bilateral talks in New Delhi had discussed the evolving situation in Myanmar and its impact on regional stability.

Myanmar has been under junta rule since February 2021 and the military, locally known as Tatmadaw, has faced severe resistance from ethnic groups in many regions of the country.

At least three ethnic armed groups, which united under the so-called Brotherhood Alliance, have been fighting the junta regime to take control in the northern parts of Myanmar since late October.

The groups are attacking junta forces, which rule the Buddhist-majority Southeast Asian nation, capturing many towns and junta outposts.

Many people have been reported killed during the attacks.