New Delhi: Slipping past gun-toting soldiers of Myanmar’s military, a Member of Parliament (MP) and his family from a parliamentary constituency in the Chin Hills of Myanmar made a successful dash in his trusty family car on Wednesday to escape the brutal ongoing crackdown by the ‘Tatmadaw’ (Myanmar’s military).
A top source told ETV Bharat on the phone from Mizoram that the MP, who is not being named for obvious reasons of safety and security, crossed the border with his family by his private vehicle and entered Siaha, Mizoram’s southernmost district.
The source said: “Even after crossing the international border, the MP did not relent out of apprehension that he may be followed and drove his vehicle up to Tuipang village in Mizoram.”
From the border, Tuipang is about 30 km inside Mizoram on which stretch the MP must have really stepped on the accelerator.
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At Tuipang, the MP and his family were provided shelter at the circuit house by the civil SDO.
The source added that the MP tried to send back his vehicle to Myanmar but the Assam Rifles guards posted at the border did not allow it.
The MP is understood to have reached Aizawl today where he and his family will be housed in camps set up by the state government.
With the latest entrant, a total of 17 MPs from Myanmar are in Mizoram now. Besides Chin State, the MPs hail from the eastern province of Mon State, Mandalay, and Arakan.
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The source added that the MP was moving outside his residence in Myanmar when he came to know that ‘Tatmadaw’ were waiting to arrest him whenever he came home. On being tipped off, the MP phoned his family members asking them to meet him at a prefixed point so that they could save themselves and make a run from fear to freedom in India’s Mizoram.
The majority in Mizoram and many people in Manipur belong to the Kuki-Mizo ethnic group which share common ethnic, linguistic, cultural and kinship ties with the Chin people inhabiting the Sagaing state in the western Myanmar.
The Chin State has 24 parliamentary seats, of which 18 are elected seats while 6 are ‘Tatmadaw’ appointees.
After a decade-long experiment with democracy, the ‘Tatmadaw’ led a coup on February 1, 2021 after an electoral verdict in November 2020 overwhelmingly favoured the NLD. The NLD bagged 396 seats of the total 476, while the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) got just 33.
Mizoram has a 510-km-long and totally porous international border with Myanmar that stretches across the Champhai, Siaha, Lawngtlai, Serchhip, Hnahthial and Saitual districts.
More than 2,200 people have been given refuge in Mizoram ever since the ‘Tatmadaw’ crackdown began.
Besides civilians, politicians, many ‘Tatmadaw’ personnel, policemen and their families have entered Mizoram to escape a brutal crackdown on forces of democracy by the General Min Aung Hlaing-led Junta that brought upon a coup on February 1, 2021.
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