Centre calls United Naga Council for talks on border fencing, FMR in Delhi

The United Naga Council (UNC), Manipur’s apex Naga body, has received an invitation from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to attend a meeting in New Delhi on August 26 to discuss concerns over the fencing of the India-Myanmar border and the scrapping of the Free Movement Regime (FMR), officials said.

The invitation, sent by A K Mishra, Advisor (North East) to MHA, was addressed to UNC president Ng Lorho, requesting the presence of a delegation at the meeting. The development comes just days after a UNC team met Manipur Governor Ajay Kumar Bhalla at the Raj Bhavan in Imphal on August 16 to press its concerns on the two issues.

Naga groups in Manipur have been vocal against the Centre’s decision to fence the India-Myanmar border, particularly in Naga-majority areas, and the move to scrap FMR. Manipur shares a 398-km stretch of the 1,643-km-long international boundary with Myanmar.

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On July 22, several Naga bodies, including the UNC, All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur, Naga Women’s Union and Naga People’s Movement for Human Rights (South), had jointly submitted a memorandum to the Centre through the Governor, demanding an immediate halt to border fencing and restoration of the FMR within 20 days.

The FMR, which allowed residents on both sides of the border to travel up to 16 km into each other’s territory without documents, was scrapped by the Union government in February last year, alongside plans to fence the entire border.

Opposition to the decision has been strong across the Northeast, with Nagas in Manipur and Nagaland, Kukis in Manipur, and Mizos in Mizoram expressing fears that the move will disconnect them from their ethnic kin across the border.