Infiltration through India-Myanmar border poses threat of terrorism

The India-Myanmar border, which is more than 1,600 km long — sharing with four States of the Northeast — has become a headache for the nation’s internal security. The local terror groups, including Rohingya terrorists backed by Pakistan’s ISI, desperately try to make it a transit point for terrorists to enter India.

According to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), this border has seen the maximum infiltration in which the highest number of terrorists have been killed among such encounters along all international borders of India excluding the Jammu and Kashmir stretch.

The data compiled by the MHA says that the security forces deployed at the India-Myanmar border are arresting one terrorist every third day on an average. Even last year, this border saw the highest number of instances of infiltration.

There is a 16-km wide free zone without fences along this border. According to the MHA data, this year till July, the security forces arrested 66 terrorists and killed three who were trying to cross over to India.

In July this year, Rohingya terrorists opened fire at Assam Rifles men along the border. Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an insurgent group, attacked a patrolling team. ARSA is getting support from Pakistan’s ISI that is trying to disturb internal security of India.

Similarly, in 2017, in a total of 99 incidents of infiltration, 9 terrorists were killed and 130 were caught alive.

Apart from the India-Myanmar border, no other border (excluding Jammu and Kashmir region) has seen such a massive infiltration.

Recently, India and Myanmar signed a landmark land border crossing agreement. Now, the governments will open a check post where immigration officials will be deployed to keep a check on illegal immigrants.

States like Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram share borders with Myanmar. “The government is planning to replace BSF with Assam Rifles at more than 1,600 km long border of India-Myanmar. Assam Rifles deployed for years have shown no good results in controlling the insurgency. However, the Indian Army is keen to keep Assam Rifles at Indo-Myanmar border,” a senior MHA official said.