(MENAFN- Live Mint) "Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Saturday that India's border with Myanmar will be protected like border with Bangladesh. He was speaking in Assam at the passing out parade of state police commandos. His statement came as hundreds of Myanmar soldiers reportedly crossed the border into India to flee an advance by armed insurgents fighting the country's junta at the event, Shah said, \"Our border with Myanmar is an open border. The Narendra Modi government has decided to protect the India-Myanmar border...and we will work towards building fence in the entire border area (with Myanmar) like that at the borders with Bangladesh.\"ALSO READ: 'India must bring in changes in its policy towards Myanmar'He said the Indian government is discussing the Free Movement Regime agreement with Myanmar. \"Now, the government will stop this free movement between the two countries,\" Amit Shah announced Union government had earlier said it plans to fence a 300-km stretch of unfenced boundary with Myanmar and end the free movement regime, PTI had reported. The“free movement regime” allows people living on both sides of the international border to travel within 16 km into each other's territory without visa Amit Shah announced this?Amit Shah's statement came a day after an Indian paramilitary officer told news agency AFP that nearly 300 Myanmar soldiers crossed the border into India to flee an advance by armed insurgents fighting the country's junta.“A total of 276 troops, carrying their arms and ammunition, arrived at Bondukbangsora village,” an officer from the Assam Rifles paramilitary force was quoted as saying. \"We have given them shelter at our camp,\" he said, adding that the arriving soldiers were \"given all the support they require\".The officer reportedly said that his unit was collecting biometric data from the soldiers and had sought approval from the defence ministry in New Delhi to return them to Myanmar, NDTV reported that latest influx took the number of soldiers who fled Myanmar since November 13 and reached India to 636, clashes rocked parts of Myanmar near the Indian border since the Arakan Army (AA) attacked security forces in November, ending a ceasefire that had largely held since a 2021 military coup week, the group said it had taken over the major town of Paletwa and six military bases along the border of India's Mizoram state, where the soldiers had crossed on Wednesday, AFP reported are Myanmar soldiers coming to India?According to local media reports, hundreds of Myanmar troops fled to India to escape fighting since the ceasefire ended in November. Two Myanmar military aircraft arrived in Aizawl, the Mizoram state capital, to collect and repatriate soldiers who retreated from the conflict plunged into the crisis when the generals seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup in February 2021 this, in November 2023, Myanmar's military regime admitted that it is facing“heavy assaults” by anti-coup forces, which claimed to have taken control of several towns in border areas and dozens of military outposts, AlJazeera reported.

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