Aizawl: Forty-two personnel of Myanmar’s armed forces took shelter Monday evening at Zokhawthar police station in Mizoram’s Champhai district, just across the border, ThePrint has learnt. This occurred after the combined forces of several militia groups captured a Myanmar military camp following fierce clashes at two border villages.
Speaking to ThePrint over the phone from Zokhawthar police station, the village council president (VCP) of Zokhawthar, Lalmuanpuia, said: “In desperation, they surrendered to the nearest police station (Zokhawthar) along with all their arms and ammunition.”
A senior state police officer informed ThePrint that the matter had been intimated to the Ministry of Home Affairs and the MHA had said that the Myanmar military personnel should be handed over to the Assam Rifles, which guards the 404km-long Mizoram-Myanmar international border.
“It is most likely that the Ministry of External Affairs will make arrangements to hand over the Myanmar Army personnel to the Myanmar military government through the Assam Rifles,” the official added.
Even though no official statement has been released yet, according to local security sources, the 42 military personnel, currently in Mizoram police custody, will be taken to the border village of Hnahlan in Champhai district, from where they will be repatriated to Myanmar. The MHA is in contact with the Myanmar military, the sources said.
The rebel force that overran the Khawmawi military camp is believed to be a joint group of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Chin National Army (CNA), and the Chinland Defence Force (CDF).
As reported by ThePrint earlier, clashes have been taking place at the Indo-Myanmar border for several days after CDF guerrillas mounted attacks on Myanmar military outposts. The rebel forces had been trying to capture Rihkhawdar town and Khawmawi village on the banks of the Tiau, which is about 4-5 km from Zokhawthar on the Indian side.
Lalmuanpuia said the KIA-CNA-CDF combined forces had also captured the Rihkhawdar camp, where they took seven Myanmar soldiers into custody.
“The rest might have been killed in the attacks on the camp, and we cannot have any information on how many Myanmar soldiers died in the camp,” he added.
So far, the clashes have reportedly claimed the lives of eight people on the Myanmar side, including a 51-year-old refugee who got hit by a bullet in Myanmar and later died at a hospital in Champhai.
The KIA-CNA-CDF alliance also suffered casualties, with seven fighters killed and 19 wounded, as well as two civilians injured by the Myanmar military gunfire in Zokhawthar.
There were as many as 20 people injured in Zokhawthar. Of them, seven were transferred to Aizawl for medical treatment, while the rest were being treated at a district hospital in Champhai district.
(This is an updated version of the report)
(Edited by Richa Mishra)
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