In its letter addressed to Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma, the KNDP requested his support for the construction of a training centre in the border area of Lawngtlai
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
A purported letter from an organisation of a small ethnic community in Bangladesh seeking to establish a training camp in Mizoram has made security agencies suspect that the State could be used by foreign rebel groups to plan their fight or civil war in their countries.
In its letter addressed to Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma on March 5, the Khumi National Democratic Party (KNDP) requested his support and advice for the construction of a Khumi National Army (KNA) training centre in the border area of Lawngtlai. The KNA is the KNDP’s armed wing.
Lawngtlai is one of the three districts of Mizoram bordering the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. The other two districts sharing the 318 km border are Lunglei and Mamit.
Also called Khami or Kami, the Khumis are concentrated in three areas of CHT and number less than 5,000. They have more than 1,00,000 members in Myanmar.
The KNDP said the Khumi people have been facing a lot of difficulties and oppression from the Bangladesh armed forces and nationalist groups, necessitating a strong resistance force to “protect our motherland”. Promising not to create problems for the locals and the government, the outfit said a camp in Mizoram would help its fighters train without worrying about enemy attacks.
The Mizoram Chief Minister’s Office denied any connection with the KNDP and said the letter could have been planted to show the Zoram People’s Movement government in a poor light. “I have not received such a letter,” Mr. Lalduhoma told The Hindu.
Security and intelligence agencies, however, said they have found no reason yet to doubt the content of the letter – retrieved from Bangladeshi nationals – as waves of indigenous peoples have fled persecution or adverse situations in Bangladesh beginning with the Chakmas in the 1960s. The last group to take refuge in Mizoram after fleeing violence in the CHT was the Kuki-Chin people in November 2022.
The Khumi and Kuki-Chin people are members of the Zo ethnic group, to which the dominant Mizos of Mizoram belong.
“The letter is being seen in the context of the movement of foreigners in Mizoram and meetings held in (State capital) Aizawl and other parts of the State by Myanmar-based insurgent or resistance groups. These meetings were facilitated by some civil society organisations,” an officer of a security agency said, requesting anonymity.
According to a list of such events maintained by the agency, foreigners visited Myanmarese refugee camps in Mizoram frequently and also tried to cross over to Myanmar in April. On April 27, members of Myanmar’s Chin National Front (CNF), the political wing of the armed China National Army fighting the military junta, held meetings in Aizawl and Farkawn in the Champhai district.
Aizawl hosted a meeting of the “MLAs of the National Unity Government (Myanmar’s government in exile) and Chin State” on July 20 and a meeting of the CNF and Chin National Defence Force for the “finalisation of constitution” on August 7. The list also mentions a July 27 “mediation meeting” facilitated by an advisor to the Mizoram government between the Zo Reunification Organisation (ZORO) and the CNF.
The ZORO is a Mizo group that seeks the reunification of all Chin-Kuki-Mizo-Zomi tribes of India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar by bringing them under one administrative umbrella.
Among the other such meetings noted was one of the members of the United League of Arakan, the political wing of Myanmar’s Arakan Army in southern Mizoram’s Lawngtlai on July 19. The focus of the meeting was on the movement of goods to Myanmar, the officer said.
“Frequent charity events are organised in Mizoram for the benefit of the internally displaced people (from Manipur, mostly) and refugees from the adjoining countries. The possibility of the collected funds being used to help the resistance groups beyond the State’s borders cannot be ruled out, and this poses a security risk for the country,” he said.
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