Aizawl, May 17 : The Mizoram government has rounded up 136 Myanmarese infiltrators since last month and sent them to prison in its second phase of deportation drive against illegal immigrants, 60,000 of whom are estimated to be living in the state.
The first phase of the drive began in October last year after the Union home ministry asked the Mizoram government in July to step up its police and intelligence surveillance to identify illegal Myanmarese migrants of the Chin community and begin judicial procedures against them.
Following the instruction, more than 52 Chin families were driven out of Mizoram last year.
The drive began again in April, when 15 were arrested from Zawngtui block in Aizawl district.
Forty people were identified and rounded up from Chawlhmun block of Aizawl on May 6.
The following day, 16 migrants from Myanmar who were living in the state without valid passport or visas were arrested.
Twenty more families were pushed back to Myanmar earlier this month.
Poverty and lack of development in Myanmar prompts many to cross over and seek work in Mizoram as labourers in automobile repair shops, garment factories and road building projects.
Anti-army junta feelings in the Chin hills have also led to infiltration.
Aizawl district superintendent of police, Lalbiakthanga Khiangte, said Myanmarese citizens are permitted to move within a 16-km radius along the Indo-Myanmar border only for trading purposes, but are not allowed to settle in Mizoram.
The police have now formed a special cell, which with help from NGOs, particularly the Young Mizo Association, will identify illegal Myanmarese migrants in the state.
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