Army operations against NSCN(K) along Myanmar border

GUWAHATI/NEW DELHI: Ahead of PM Narendra Modi’s Myanmar visit, the Army has launched an operation along the Myanmar border areas in Arunachal Pradesh. In Longding district, one cadre of Khaplang faction of NSCN was killed on Sunday and the hideout of the outfit was destroyed.

On condition of anonymity, a senior official in Arunachal government said: “Army has launched operation in the three districts of Longding, Khonsa and Changlang. Militants use these areas as hideouts and safe passage to Myanmar.”

Meanwhile, government sources in Delhi said the Army received specific inputs about the movement of militants in Wakka subdivision of Longding district. Later in the afternoon, Army chief general Bipin Rawat met minister of state for home affairs Kiren Rijiju and minister of state for external affairs VK Singh during which the Army operation was discussed.


However, Rawat later said such encounters occur regularly. “It was a normal operation. They happen every day. There is nothing big about it,” he said.

Militant outfits of northeast India have bases in Myanmar. Khaplang faction of NSCN, the United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent), the Songbijit faction of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland and Kamatapur Liberation Organisation have formed a common platform to fight against India. This platform is floated in the lines of erstwhile Indo-Burma Revolutionary Front.

The group has declared itself as United National Liberation Front of WESEA (UNLFW) to unite and liberate the ancestral homes in the western south Asia.