Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday announced that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country. The home minister said that it was Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s resolve to secure the country's borders. 

Shah said that the aim of abolishing FMR is to preserve the demographic composition of India’s northeastern states that share borders with Myanmar. 

Taking to X, formerly Twitter, Shah wrote, “The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has decided that the Free Movement Regime (FMR) between India and Myanmar be scrapped to ensure the internal security of the country and to maintain the demographic structure of India’s North Eastern States bordering Myanmar. Since the Ministry of External Affairs is currently in the process of scrapping it, MHA has recommended the immediate suspension of the FMR.”

The announcement came days after the home minister said that India has decided to fence the entire 1,643-km-long India-Myanmar border, ending the Free Movement Regime (FMR) that existed along the porous border.

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All About Free Movement Regime (FMR)

The Free Movement Regime (FMR) allows citizens living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 kilometres inside another country without any documents or visas. The India-Myanmar border, which passes through Manipur,  Mizoram, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh, currently has FMR. 

Fencing along the border has been a longstanding demand of Imphal Valley-based Meitei tribes, who have been claiming that the insurgents often enter India through the porous border. Manipur and Myanmar reportedly share a 398-kilometer border, of which around 6 kilometres is fenced, news agency PTI reported citing officials.

Earlier, Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh also held a meeting with the officials of the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) to discuss plans to extend the India-Myanmar border fencing by 70 kilometres over the influx of illegal immigrants in Manipur from neighbouring Myanmar.