Jammu: Citing “illegality,” at least six Rohingya refugees have been arrested by the Jammu and Kashmir Police on Saturday from Jammu region.
Officials said that Jammu police received information through reliable sources that six persons, identified as Mohammad Junaid (17) Son of Shab Mia and Noor Begum, Jasmine Akhtar (15) daughter of Shab Mia and Noor begum, Azida daughter of Shab Mia and Noor Begum, Mohd Illiyas (21) son of Jahid Alam, Rubina (20) Wife of Mohd Illyas and Mujeeb (18), son of Shah Miyan were putting up “illegally” in the jurisdiction of Police Channi, Himmat.
Accordingly, a team of Jammu Police reached the spot and arrested them, officials said
An official confirmed that the accused have entered the Indian Territory by crossing the border “illegally”.
The Rohingya are an ethnic group, the majority of whom are Muslim, who have lived for centuries in the majority Buddhist Myanmar’s Rakhine province.
Since the 1970s, a number of crackdowns on the Rohingya in Rakhine State have forced hundreds of thousands to flee to neighbouring countries. They have witnessed crackdowns, refugees have often reported rape, torture, arson and murder by Myanmar security forces.
More one million Rohingya have fled Myanmar due to widespread persecution.
According to the United Nations, nearly 40,000 Rohingya have fled to India from Myanmar, most of them in 2017 when the military crackdown began.
Despite the fact that India is a signatory to international laws such as the 1951 UN Convention and the 1967 Protocol, which secure the rights of refugees to seek asylum and protect them from being sent back to life-threatening places, the BJP government’s policy has become hostile towards Rohingya refugees and has called for their deportation with top ministers in the ruling government insisting that Rohingyas were not refugees or asylum-seekers but "illegal immigrants.”
However, India took in tens of thousands of refugees from Bangladesh after war in 1971.
For years, the country supported the Dalai Lama and Tibetan refugees after a failed anti-China uprising in 1959.