Myanmar on Wednesday denied media reports that Indian forces had attacked insurgents inside its territory and said it would not tolerate rebel groups using its soil to attack neighbours.
The Indian government maintains the operation took place on its side of the border only, despite reports in the Indian media and international news agencies that quoted a senior government official saying Indian troops had operated inside Myanmar territory.
In a Facebook post Wednesday Zaw Htay, director of Myanmar’s presidential office, backed up New Delhi’s assertion that the border had not been breached.
“According to the information sent by Tatmadaw [Myanmar army] battalions on the ground, we have learned that the military operation was performed on the Indian side at India-Myanmar border.
“Myanmar will not accept any foreigner who attacks neighbouring countries in the back and creates problems by using our own territory,” he added.
New Delhi said its forces had hunted down a rebel group operating in the mountainous forests of Manipur state, close to Myanmar’s long western border.
The fighters were allegedly involved in the killing of 20 Indian soldiers in an ambush last week.
India’s Ambassador to Myanmar met with the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday to “explain the situation,” Reuters reported.
India’s junior minister for information and broadcasting, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, was quoted by Reuters as saying the army attacked rebels just over the border with Myanmar on Tuesday, underlining New Delhi’s resolve to fight terrorism beyond the country’s borders.
Indian forces confirmed Tuesday that they “engaged two separate groups of insurgents” in the mountainous forests close to the border with Myanmar after armed rebels ambushed a military convoy in Manipur state last Thursday, killing 20 and wounding 12 soldiers.
“Significant casualties have been inflicted on them,” Ranbir Singh, additional director of general military operations, said at a press conference in New Delhi, without giving further details.
The remote Hindu-majority state of Manipur is home to dozens of tribal groups and small guerrilla armies fighting New Delhi’s rule. Their demands range from secession to greater autonomy.
At least 50,000 people have lost their lives in insurgency-driven violence in six of India’s seven northeastern states since the country’s independence from Britain in 1947, authorities say.
Much of the border region with Myanmar is porous and the Indian central government’s authority there is weak.
Myanmar itself is plagued by multiple insurgencies in its border regions.
In recent months relations with Beijing have cooled as an ethnic insurgency raging in Myanmar spilt over its border with China.
In March a Myanmar warplane dropped a bomb in a sugar cane field, killing five Chinese people and injuring eight others and infuriating Beijing.
