NIA files a chargesheet without UAPA against seven men held over Myanmar training

The National Investigation Agency on 8 September filed a chargesheet against seven foreign men it arrested in March for alleged work with ethnic armed groups in Myanmar, and left the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act off the paper. Special Public Prosecutor Rahul Tyagi told the Rouse Avenue court that the UAPA investigation continues and that a supplementary sheet can still be filed if those offences are made out.

The seven are U.S. citizen Matthew Aaron VanDyke and Ukrainian nationals Hurba Petro, Slyviak Taras, Ivan Sukmanovskyi, Stefankiv Marian, Honcharuk Maksim and Kaminskyi Viktor. They were picked up on 13 March at three airports: VanDyke in Kolkata, three Ukrainians in Delhi and three in Lucknow. The first remand papers cited Section 18 of the UAPA, the conspiracy clause, and alleged that the men had trained groups hostile to India, moved drones from Europe through Indian territory and crossed from Mizoram into Myanmar.

Tuesday's sheet uses Sections 21 and 23 of the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025. Those sections deal with illegal entry, stay and movement. Both are compoundable at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office. Judge Prashant Sharma listed the sheet for 1 October. The men have been in custody for about 180 days after a later May date cited in some court papers. They were first remanded to 11 days of NIA custody on 17 March.

The agency still describes a route. It says the group entered India on valid visas, travelled to Mizoram, which is a protected area, and crossed into Myanmar without the permits that crossing requires. It says they went there for scheduled arms training. Last week the NIA told the court the same group was tied to a drone attack on a civilian aircraft in Myanmar. Those sentences remain in the narrative. They are not, today, UAPA counts.

Dropping the terror sections on the first sheet is a legal choice with a political shadow. UAPA cases are hard to bail and hard to walk back. Foreigners Act counts can end in compounding, deportation or a shorter trial. Keeping UAPA "pending" lets the agency hold the original theory without having to prove it on 8 September. Defence lawyers will treat the gap as evidence that the March arrests outran the file. The agency will treat it as sequencing.

VanDyke has a public trail as a filmmaker and contractor who has worked around wars. The Ukrainians were described in early briefs as men with military skills. The March operation was sold as a catch of trainers who could thicken the firepower of groups on India's eastern edge. A chargesheet that names only immigration offences does not erase that claim. It does say the claim is not ready for a terror trial.

October 1 is the next date that matters. If a supplementary UAPA sheet arrives before then, Tuesday was a pause. If it does not, seven men who spent half a year in a terror case will face a border-and-papers trial, and the March story will have to live with a thinner statute.