Parliament in India’s northeastern Nagaland State has appealed to the New Delhi government to persuade Myanmar to stop building a fence along the border, media reports said.
The Nagaland assembly in Kohima adopted a resolution containing the request on March 28, Indian newspapers reported.
The proposed fence had caused concern among Nagaland residents near the border because they believe it would prevent their free movement on ancestral land, the Times of India reported.
It quoted Nagaland Chief Minister Mr Shurhozelie Liezietsu as saying the state government and the Naga people were united in opposing the fence.
“We will do everything to see that the traditional right of the Naga people to move about freely within their own ancestral land is not taken away,” he said.
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The resolution was tabled by Mr P. Longon, the health and family welfare minister, who told the assembly that Myanmar had started work on the border fence, in the remote Naga Self-Administered Zone of Sagaing Region, on December 12, 2016.
Villagers in the affected area had rejected the project from the first day, Longon said, adding that 39 iron pillars erected by “the neighbouring country” should be removed immediately, the Times of India reported.
