Assam police had on Friday detained five Myanmar nationals along with a Mizo girl at the inter-state borders with Mizoram in the Cachar district of Barak Valley in the state’s southern end.
According to Cachar Police, the detained, all male, who had allegedly crossed into Mizoram from Myanmar were attempting to reach the national capital Delhi.
The detained has been identified as, Thang Khawm Pau, Khen Khan Kham, Pau Hawmliam Mung, Cin Aih Mang and Pau Biak Muang.
A girl from the Zokhawtjar area in Champhai district of Mizoram, Dimdeihluni, was traveling along with them, who allegedly worked as a guide for them.
Sources said the Myanmar nationals were intercepted at the Lailapur check point in Cachar on Friday evening. They were traveling from Champhai which also shares a porous border and an ethnic ancestry with people of Chin state in Myanmar.
According to police, all the detained hail from a village named Tiddin in Sezang, district of Chin state.
Post the Junta coup that toppled Myanmar’s democratic government in February 1, over 12,000 from the Chin state and neighbouring places in Myanmar have taken refuge in Champhai and other districts of Mizoram, the only state in India that provided them shelter.
The country has seen a series of incursions and clashes since then between the people led by their government in exile and the Junta.
The incident comes weeks after 11 Myanmar nationals were detained at the Imphal Airport, while on October 8, Assam Rifles detained 24 others at Moreh, international borders with Myanmar in Manipur with fake Aadhaar cards.
Initially, after the coup, the Myanmar refugees were settled in Mizoram as Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh with which the neighbouring country also shares a border, abiding by Union Home Affairs order declining shelter to the refugees as India wasn’t part of UN Refugee Convention 1951 and its subsequent protocol 1967, denied shelter.
“But, after Mizoram itself got burdened with the refugees and its fast worsening COVID-19 scenario, several of the refugees are now venturing out of the state by procuring fake Indian documents to other parts of the country,” said an intelligence source.
Mizoram government had time and again sought monetary aid from the Centre only to be turned down every time.
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