Free Movement Between India & Myanmar Stopped by Union Home Ministry

New Delhi: The Union government on Thursday suspended the Free Movement facility between India and Myanmar.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on X, “Ministry of Home Affairs has decided Free Movement Regime (will) be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of north-eastern states.”

“It is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “resolve to secure our borders,” Shah added.

Earlier people from either nation were allowed to enter up to 16km without travel documents.

Earlier Shah had said that India will fence the entire 1,643-km border with Myanmar.

The recent curb on free movement between India and Myanmar comes on the backdrop of the ethnic violence in Manipur between the hill-majority Kuki-Zo tribes, who share ethnic ties with communities in Myanmar’s Chin State, and the valley-majority Meiteis.