New Delhi, June 27: The Centre has begun surveying the porous Mizoram-Bangladesh border with a view to fence the frontier, regarded as one of the hotspots of gunrunning in the Northeast. The National Building Construction Corporation Limited (NBCCL), which is under the urban development ministry, has been asked to conduct a survey and compile a report on fencing 200 km of Mizoram’s western border with Bangladesh, the total length of which is 318 km. A final decision will be taken by the home ministry after the completion of the survey. “The survey has been initiated and expected to be completed in a few weeks time,” said NBCCL chairman Arup Roy-Choudhury.
Mizoram will be the fourth state in the Northeast where Delhi might decide to usher in measures along the border to stop the free flow of arms and narcotics. The decision to fence the border of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura was taken long ago and work is currently in progress, though at a slow pace.
But Mizoram’s location is more strategic as it also has a 510 km border with Myanmar.
The Centre’s concern to seal the border after a rose huge consignment of arms was seized from the Chittagong Hill Tracts, believed to be for the militant outfits of the Northeast.
In a revised list of 42 militant camps in Bangladesh submitted by Tripura chief minister Manik Sarkar to the Prime Minister last Wednesday, several are located in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and Sylhet in Bangladesh.
Sources said out of the several active routes in the region used for gunrunning, those through Mizoram, touching Tlabung and Demagiri, are “hyper-active.”
The Centre seems to be paying more importance to the country’s border with Bangladesh though trafficking is also rampant along the state’s border with Myanmar. In 2001, 26 grenade launchers were seized in Shillong and they were smuggled into Mizoram from Myanmar through Champai.
Roy Choudhury said the model of fencing, whenever it is approved, would be on the lines of the projects that NBCCL has taken up along the borders in Meghalaya and Tripura.
Welcoming the Centre’s decision, Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga said the move should have been taken long ago. “We had taken this up with Delhi repeatedly and a fence to some extent would check the criminal activities in this part of the country,” he said, but added that gunrunning is common to many states of the region.