Army ensuring no armed immigrants are entering India from Myanmar: Lt Gen RP Kalita

Lt Gen RP Kalita, GOC-in-C, Eastern Command stated the army is ensuring that no armed immigrants are entering India from the Myanmar side.

Kalita took part in the diamond jubilee celebrations of HQ 101 area of the Indian Army in Shillong, Meghalaya.

Talking to media persons, he said, “Our nation traditionally is not in favour of any form of violence in society whether it is perpetuated by a particular group of people or state, we are against violence or terrorism. Condition in Myanmar is that pro-democracy forces are fighting against the army, which is ruling the state.”

He said, “There are certain issues cropped up in the border areas. When the fighting takes place close to our border we have the Myanmarese population migrating to our areas to escape the fighting. Our job is to ensure that nobody with arms comes to our areas, only unarmed people are given shelter by the state governments thereafter as and when they are keen they are pushed back to their territory.”

The Manipur government is considering setting up a temporary shelter home in the border town of Moreh. The shelter will accommodate 5,000 immigrants. More than 30,500 Myanmar nationals are already taking shelter at 160 relief camps and other places including community centres in eight of the 11 districts in Mizoram.

Kalita said that Arunachal Pradesh is definitely a part of India. “It (Arunachal Pradesh being part of India) has been clearly stated in various articulations that has come out from our government. There are different perceptions about the line of actual control (LAC) …because of which there are certain times escalations take place between both sides during regular patrolling activities.”

He added, “But there are five agreements in place between our army and the Chinese and all these problems, whenever anything happens are resolved using these existing protocols. Over the last one year we have seen a stable security situation along the northern borders as well as in Arunachal Pradesh and also in Sikkim. However, we are constantly monitoring the situation and our armed forces are prepared to deal with any contingency that may arise,” he added.

He said that the Vibrant village programme will bring a lot of infrastructure.” Vibrant village programme is a programme for infrastructure development in our own country. What China is doing and what the PLA is doing is being monitored. This is a comprehensive package for infrastructure development to ensure that connectivity to forward areas is improved and the villagers living there get facilities of the plains.”

Kalita said that in the last few years’ security scene has definitely improved and there is a lot of infrastructure development. “States like Assam, Manipur and Nagaland which have seen insurgent movements have witnessed drop in violence parameters because of which Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 is reduced in certain districts and police stations due to this there is a lot of work of infrastructure development going on now.”

He added, “In Meghalaya all the groups are in talks so law and order is being looked after by police. In Mizoram there is a problem of infiltration from Myanmar due to instability in Myanmar. In Arunachal Pradesh there is some amount of insurgency in the Tirap, Changlang and Longding. However, we are seeing a distinct change as people are opening coming out against the extortion. Across Northeast India there is definite improvement in the security situation and a yearning for peace and development.”