Kohima, March 7 An all-party delegation, led by Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, would soon meet Union Home Minister Amit Shah to urge him not to scrap the Free Movement Regime (FMR) with neighbouring Myanmar.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) last year announced that the FMR, which allows people residing along the India-Myanmar border to travel 16 km into each other’s territory without a visa, would be scrapped soon.
Instead, the MHA decided to replace the FMR to adopt a new scheme to issue a pass to the border residents of both India and Myanmar living within 10 km on either side of the frontier to regulate cross-border movements.
The Nagaland Assembly on Friday unanimously decided that an all-party delegation would meet the Union Home Minister to explain to him the "sentiment and resentment of the Naga people" against the MHA’s decision to cancel the FMR between India and Myanmar.
Participating in the discussion on the issue, the Chief Minister told the house that the restriction would affect the long-standing historical, ethnic, social, cultural, tribal and economic ties of Nagas living on both sides of the India-Myanmar border. The delegation would apprise the Home Minister about the concerns and unanimity of the house, which adopted unanimous resolutions passed on March 1, 2024, and the state cabinet decisions of February 8, 2024, and January 6, 2025.
The Nagaland and Mizoram governments and a large number of political parties in the two northeastern states have been opposing both border fencing and the FMR. Four northeastern states -- Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, and Mizoram -- share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar. The MHA had earlier decided to erect fencing on the entire porous border, known for the smuggling of arms, ammunition, narcotics and various other contrabands, at a cost of Rs 31,000 crore.
Meanwhile, the Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh governments, however, separately urged the MHA to erect fencing along the India-Myanmar border to prevent illegal trades of arms, ammunition, varied drugs and many other contrabands besides illegal cross-border movements of inimical elements.
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