Myanmar border fence going nowhere

Kolkata, January 15

The fence, being erected along the Indo-Myanmar border to curtail the movement of insurgents through the porous frontier, appears to be going nowhere.

“I won’t even say that it (border fencing between India and Myanmar) is in the pipeline,” Lt General MM Naravane, Chief of the Army’s Eastern Command, said here today. Talking to reporters at the Eastern Command Headquarters, Fort William, on the occasion of Army Day, Naravane said all he could say about the proposed fencing was that “it was under consideration”. “We will have to see how it pans out”, he said.

Four Northeastern states – Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram and Manipur – share border with Myanmar. The work of fencing the border had begun in Manipur but was stopped due to protests by locals. According to them, fencing will result in a huge stretch of land becoming Myanmar’s territory and create unrest among ethnic groups living on both sides of the border. — TNS