New Delhi, Jan. 20: Union Home Minister of India Amit Shah Saturday formally announced that the Union Government has decided to fence the entire length of the currently porous Indo-Myanmar border and end the Free Movement Regime (FMR) with the neighbouring country.

According to the Indian Media, India and Myanmar share a 1643 kilometre border along the Northeastern states of Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, a porous border of which only 10 km is fenced in Manipur. The Free Movement Regime with Myanmar, formalised in 2018 following the Agreement between India and Myanmar on Land Border Crossing, allows tribes living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa and stay up to two weeks.

Addressing the passing out parade of newly appointed commandos of the Assam Police in Guwahati on Saturday, Shah stated, “Our border with Myanmar is an open border. The Narendra Modi government has made a decision that the India-Myanmar border will be secure and the whole border will be fenced like the Bangladesh border. And the government is reconsidering our Free Movement Regime agreement with Myanmar, and is going to end this ease of coming and going.”

This public announcement confirms reports from the beginning of this month that the Union government is planning such a move. With the end of the FMR and the fencing of the border, it will be mandatory for anyone coming into India from across the border to get a visa.

Sources had told that the rationale for this move is to check the influx of illegal immigrants, drugs and gold smuggling, as well as to “stop the misuse of FRM” by insurgent groups to carry out attacks on the Indian side and escape into Myanmar.

In the light of the ongoing conflict in Manipur, the state’s Chief Minister N Biren Singh had stated last September that he had asked the Centre to scrap the FMR, citing the influx of illegal immigrants and cross-border trafficking.

While the Manipur government has been actively advocating for the sealing of the Indo-Myanmar border, governments and civil society in Mizoram and Nagaland have expressed their opposition to ending the FMR and fencing the border.

Soon after the reports emerged that this move was being planned, Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma had met the Prime Minister and the External Affairs Minister in Delhi, after which he told the media that the Mizos consider the Indo-Myanmar border “an imposed boundary” and that fencing it is “unacceptable” to the Mizo people. The government of Nagaland has refrained from commenting on the matter so far but Deputy Chief Minister Y Patton met Lalduhoma in Aizawl last week, following which the Mizoram government had stated that Patton had communicated that fencing the border would be “unacceptable for Nagas” given the significant Naga population in Myanmar.