‘FMR or RMR facilitates regulated cross-border movement along India-Myanmar border’

Kohima, Sep 21 (IANS) The Free Movement Regime (FMR) or Regulated Movement Regime (RMR) facility allows eligible residents of villages located within 10 km of the India-Myanmar border on either side to undertake regulated cross-border movement, officials said on Monday.

A defence spokesman said that the scale of legitimate movement facilitated under the FMR/RMR also underscores that the mechanism is not intended to prevent people-to-people contact, but to regulate such movement in accordance with the prescribed conditions.

According to official records, 16,428 Border Passes have been issued so far, indicating that regulated cross-border movement continues to be facilitated for eligible people who meet the prescribed requirements, the spokesman said.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2024 announced that the Free Movement Regime (FMR), which earlier allowed people residing along the India-Myanmar border to travel 16 km into each other’s territory without a passport and visa, would be scrapped soon. Instead, the MHA decided to replace the FMR with a new scheme to issue a pass to the border residents of both India and Myanmar living within 10 km on either side of the frontier to regulate cross-border movements.

The Nagaland and Mizoram governments and a large number of political parties and civil societies in the two Northeastern states have been strongly opposing both border fencing and the scrapping of the FMR. Four Northeastern states — Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, and Mizoram — share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar.

The MHA had earlier decided to erect fencing on the entire porous border, known for the smuggling of arms, ammunition, narcotics, illegal cross-border movement and various other contrabands, at a cost of Rs 31,000 crore.

The defence spokesman, in a statement, said that a section of the media recently alleged that the Assam Rifles stopped the Naga Students’ Federation (NSF) delegation from travelling to Myanmar at Avangkhu in Meluri district of Nagaland, without seeking clarification from the competent authorities and understanding the policies on the subject matter.

“It is hereby clarified by the Assam Rifles that the movement of the delegation of the NSF towards Myanmar was stopped in the absence of the requisite authorisation required for crossing the international border and not on account of its identity or the stated purpose of its visit, as being reported by the media outlet or claimed by NSF,” the statement said.

It said that eight persons arrived at the designated crossing point in three vehicles on September 19. The delegates, according to the statement, expressed their intention to cross the Indo-Myanmar Border towards Tsera in Myanmar. “On being asked for the documents essentially required for an authorised cross-border movement, the delegation was unable to produce a valid Border Pass or Permission issued by the competent authority,” the statement said.

The issue, therefore, is that of regulatory compliance rather than denial of cultural or people-to-people contact. “Unfortunately, social media and media platforms are being used by posting public statements and messaging to portray the incident as an attack on the Naga identity and turn a specific border – regulation issue into a wider community – versus – security – force narrative,” it said.

It is reiterated that the cross-border movement is subject to the prescribed conditions laid down in the policy on the subject. The prevailing regulated movement framework provides for cross-border movement through designated points subject to prescribed eligibility and documentation.

The delegation of NSF had travelled from Kohima, the state capital and therefore was not legally authorised to claim automatic entitlement to cross-border movement, merely based on its proposed cultural-exchange programme or reference letters, the statement pointed out.

The statement said: “A reference letter or recommendation from a civil organisation is not a valid document that constitutes permission to cross an international boundary.”

–IANS

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