New Delhi, March 19 An alert issued by security agencies based on information about attempts by certain "persons of interest" to flee India after illegally entering from Myanmar via the porous Mizoram border, led to the arrest of seven foreigners, including an US security analyst, officials said on Thursday.
They said the arrests have exposed "serious security vulnerabilities" along India's northeastern frontier.
Officials said the group, consisting of 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 information last week, detained these individuals while they were attempting to pass 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, suspecting 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 the immediate release of its citizens and claimed that there are "no established facts" proving unlawful activity, also criticizing 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 "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 neighboring country.
VanDyke's organization, 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 the deployment of teams of US military veterans to train hundreds of Assyrians (ethnic community) to defeat the 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 until 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, with written acknowledgement 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 neighboring 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 the reimposition of the Protected Area Permit (to regulate movement across the India-Myanmar border) in the state, he had told the assembly.
Mizoram shares a border of around 510 km 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 that the case is in the initial stages of investigation and that it will not be able to share details at this stage. "Details will be shared at an appropriate time," an NIA spokesperson said.