GUWAHATI: A Mizoram youth organisation claimed the Myanmar Army had hit Indian territory during an aerial attack on a camp of the Chin National Front (CNF), an ethnic insurgent group of the country.
The Young Mizo Association, Tuipuiral Group said the Myanmar fighter jets had dropped bombs targeting the CNF’s headquarters Camp Victoria on January 10 at around 3:30 pm.
“A bomb had not just hit Indian soil but also partly damaged an Indian vehicle which was near the Tiau river – the international boundary,” the organisation said in a statement on Thursday.
“The YMA, Tuipuiral Group strongly condemns the military jet fighters disrespectfully flying over the Indian side…several times for the past two months, and then dropping bombs on the Indian soil,” the statement further said.
The organisation said even as panic had set in among people living along the international border, the Myanmar military had carried out another round of aerial bombings on January 11.
Condemning Myanmar’s military government for allegedly violating international law on Indian soil and airspace, the organisation demanded that the government of India take proactive actions to stop the jets from bombing the Indian soil and flying over Indian airspace.
According to reports, five members of the CNF were killed in the bombings inside Myanmar. So far, the Mizoram government has not confirmed the bombings on Indian soil or the jets entering the Indian airspace.
Calls made to Mizoram home minister Lalchamliana and some senior government officials went unattended.
Mizoram shares a 510-km-long border with Myanmar.
The Chin people residing in Myanmar’s Chin State along the Mizoram border and the Mizos in India belong to the greater Zo community and they share the same culture and ancestry. The Chin-Kuki people settled in Bangladesh also belong to the Zo group.
Over 30,000 Chin people had fled their homes in Myanmar and entered Mizoram in the wake of the coup by the country’s military in February 2021. Even as the Mizoram government was grappling with these refugees, over 300 Chin-Kuki refugees of Bangladesh fled to the state in November last year.