New Delhi, Mar 19: An alert sounded by security agencies based on a tip off on attempts by certain “persons of interest” to flee India after gaining illegal entry from Myanmar via the porous Mizoram border, led to arrest of seven foreigners, including an US security analyst, officials said on Thursday.
They said the arrest has exposed “deep security vulnerabilities” along India’s northeast frontier.
Officials said the group, comprising six Ukrainians and an US citizen, had successfully infiltrated into India from Myanmar via the Mizoram border before being intercepted at various domestic airports in the country.
Security agencies, acting on specific tip off last week, detained these persons while they were attempting to move through major Indian transit hubs.
Matthew Aaron VanDyke, the US citizen and international security analyst, was detained at Kolkata airport. He is the founder of “Sons of Liberty International (SOLI)” and a self-described veteran of the “Libyan Revolution”.
Six Ukrainian nationals, identified as Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim, and Kaminskyi Viktor, were detained from Delhi and Lucknow airports.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested all seven foreigners and registered a case following suspicions that they were operating as mercenaries and may have been training the People’s Defence Force (PDF), a pro-democracy group declared terrorists by the Myanmar military junta, officials said.
The arrests have triggered diplomatic friction, with Kyiv lodging a formal protest.
Ambassador of Ukraine to India Oleksandr Polishchuk demanded immediate release of its citizens and claimed there are “no established facts” proving unlawful activity, also criticising the lack of official notification from Indian authorities.
The US Embassy also acknowledged the detention but declined to comment citing privacy concerns for VanDyke.
Preliminary investigations suggest that the accused are part of a high stakes conspiracy aimed at training ethnic armed groups (EAGs) in Myanmar, officials said.
These EAGs are also said to be supporting Indian insurgent groups by supplying arms, ammunition and in “war training”, they said.
It is suspected that the accused, through their associates, also illegally imported large consignments of drones from Europe to Myanmar via India, they added.
Indian security agencies are probing the alleged import of drones to the EAGs in the neighbouring country.
VanDyke’s organisation SOLI provides free security consulting, training, supplies, and other services to vulnerable populations to enable them to defend themselves against terrorists and insurgents.
It is said to have facilitated “missions” in Ukraine, Venezuela, Philippines and Iraq.
Through “Operation Nineveh Rising”, SOLI aided deployment of teams of US military veterans to train hundreds of Assyrians (ethnic community) to defeat terror outfit Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on the battlefield, according to its website.
The arrested persons were produced before a court here on March 14, which sent them to NIA custody till March 27.
All constitutional and statutory requirements were observed while arresting the accused and the grounds of their arrest were communicated to them in English as well as in their native language in writing and acknowledgement was also received, officials said.
Mizoram Chief Minister Lalduhoma, in March last year, said nearly 2,000 foreigners visited Mizoram between June and December 2024, and many of them did not come as tourists and left the state unnoticed.
He said Mizoram was being secretly used as a transit route by foreigners travelling to Myanmar, which has become a grave concern for the Centre
Lalduhoma had alleged that some foreigners even crossed the Indo-Myanmar border and entered Chin Hills in the neighbouring country to give military training to insurgent groups there.
Mizoram being used by foreigners as a transit route has become a grave concern for the Centre, prompting reimposition of the Protected Area Permit (to regulate movement across India-Myanmar border) in the state, he had told the assembly.
Mizoram shares an around 510-km-long border with Myanmar.
The Centre has already decided to fence the entire 1,643-km Indo-Myanmar border, running through Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur, and Nagaland.
Confirming the arrest, the NIA said the case is in initial stages of investigation and it won’t be able to share details at this stage. “The same will be shared at an appropriate time,” an NIA spokesperson said.
