Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh said on Tuesday that over 2,000 Myanmar nationals had entered the state due to the conflict in the neighbouring country.
Singh made the disclosure while launching a facial recognition system for fortifying the Inner Line Permit regime in the northeastern state to check the entry of outsiders and ILP defaulters. An ILP is a time-bound travel document.
Myanmar nationals had started entering Manipur and Mizoram fearing persecution at the hands of the junta following the coup in the trouble-torn country on February 1, 2021.
Singh said the government-constituted committee to check the entry of illegal immigrants had identified more than 2,000 Myanmarese nationals who had entered Manipur “due to the conflict in their country”. They are being kept in shelters set up to accommodate the refugees.
The BJP-led state government has set up three shelter homes for displaced Myanmarese nationals in Chandel, Tengnoupal and Churachandpur districts. The Churachandpur shelter started functioning last month, an official said.
The temporary shelters were set up so it would be easy to maintain a database of those entering the state and also keep a tab on their movements.
Manipur shares a 398km porous border with Myanmar’s Sagaing and Chin regions. Five districts of Manipur — Chandel, Tengnoupal, Kamjong, Ukhrul and Churchandpur — border Myanmar.
“Despite cancelling the Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allowed travel up to 16km on either side of the border (without papers), we are still unable to effectively deal with the illegal immigrant issue,” Singh said.
Dwelling on illegal immigrants, Singh said around 410 Myanmar nationals had been arrested for entering Manipur without valid documents.
A key priority of the Biren Singh government since coming to power in 2017 has been checking the drug trade and illegal immigration.
Singh appealed to the people of Manipur, especially those living in the border districts, to cooperate with the government in the “larger interest of India’s and Manipur’s security” and “help in identifying the illegal immigrants so that the government may put them in proper shelter homes”.
The ILP regime was implemented in the state with the approval of the central government to provide protection to the local population, and the state government would not compromise on its implementation, the chief minister said.
“Law and order is an internal matter and a state subject. The government cannot stop conducting ILP checking of individuals coming from outside the state,” Singh said, highlighting that out of seven Myanmarese nationals arrested recently from the airport during routine ILP checking, five had identity documents from Mizoram.
Singh appreciated all the civil society organisations, village chiefs, villagers and Church leaders who have “come out unitedly” against poppy plantation.
He said “total” eradication of illegal drugs and poppy plantations from the state was a “commitment of the government and it is working to achieve this with a conviction”.
Besides Manipur, Mizoram shares a 510km border with Myanmar. Nagaland shares a 215km border with Myanmar and Arunachal Pradesh 520km.
Over 31,000 Myanmar nationals have taken shelter in various parts of Mizoram, the highest in the Northeast. The Chin and Mizo community members share the same ancestry. Six districts of Mizoram share border with Myanmar.
The international border is guarded by the Assam Rifles.
