Forces on alert along border with M

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Subject: Forces on alert along border with Myanmar (The Hindu, 3/2/97)

Forces on alert along border with Myanmar
The Hindu (New Delhi), 3/2/97.
 
IMPHAL, Feb. 2. The international border along Manipur, Nagaland and 
Mizoram has been sealed and the BSF and other Central forces were kept on 
red alert today to check the movement of insurgent in general and 
infiltration of Myanmarese in particular, highly-placed sources said on 
Friday.
 
Anticipating a major operation by Bangladesh following agreement with 
India the insurgents who have been bivouacking in Bangladesh have 
reportedly started migrating towards unpoliced jungles of Myanmar.
 
On the other hand, there was a fear psychosis among the students, 
pro-democracy workers and members of the National League for Democracy 
(NLD) following incarceration of some of them by the military rulers of 
Myanmar on the charge of instigating the students' upheaval two months 
back.  More and more members are hounded and then sent to jail after a 
perfunctory trial,
 
The military rulers accused of forced labour, not sparing even minor 
children, trampling of human rights, repression of democratic movement 
and selling of Young boys and girls to brothels. have turned their wrath 
on the students and pro-democracy leaders,
 
In the past, many student leaders had come to Manipur and stayed in the 
refugee camps set up here with the financial assistance from the Centre, 
Indications are that India will no longer be welcoming such elements 
since their presence here would strain bilateral relations.  The 
Northeast insurgents who were migrating from Bangladesh to Myanmar were 
pinching weapons, money and the like.  Official reports said such a 
migrating group had raided the police station at Khuzuma in Nagaland 
bordering Manipur on Thursday.  The 50-odd insurgents did not fire a 
single shot since there was no resistance from the terrified policemen.  
The insurgents escaped within minutes with one light machine gun, six 
bolt rifles, 12 hand grenades, 12 detonators, two wireless sets and a 
large quantity of ammunition.
 
Intelligence sources believe that the insurgents will be going towards 
Myanmar and as such all escape routes have been blocked.  It was also 
feared in some circles that most of the insurgents had come towards, the 
NE region after leaving their huge cache of arms and ammunition stashed 
somewhere since they had plans to return to their camps in Bangladesh 
once the dust settles down or there was a change of the political climate 
there.
 
As a result the unarmed insurgents have been converging at Moren(h), the 
smugglers' border town in small numbers for crossing the international 
border by masquerading as common traders.  The police and the Central 
forces in these three States were on as it was felt that more weapons may 
be snatched by the insurgents to fend themselves while they were moving 
around to dodge the onslaught by the Bangladeshi Government.
 
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