Web editor: Yuksel Serdar Oguz
19 August 2017•Update: 04 June 2018
NEW DELHI
Amina Khatoon, a 24-year-old Rohingya refugee in capital New Delhi, risks losing her home for time.
She fled Myanmar in 2012 following communal violence which claimed her husband’s life.
"I was pregnant when I came here. I managed to survive. I don't have much, but it's better to die here in India than go home," she told Anadolu Agency on Friday.
The stateless group – which is neither accepted by Myanmar nor its neighbor Bangladesh – is living in constant fear following the Indian government’s plan to deport 40,000 Rohingya refugees.
Kiren Rijiju, India’s union minister of state for home affairs, recently told the parliament that the central government had asked the states to identify Rohingya Muslims living illegally and initiate their deportation process.
He said that the UN had registered the Rohingya Muslims as refugees, but India was not a signatory to any accord on refugees.
India is not obliged to keep them in the country, he added.
Commission seeks report
The National Human Rights Commission on Friday took suo moto notice of media reports suggesting the deportation of Rohingya refugees.
It issued a notice to the Union Home Ministry calling for a detailed report on the matter in four weeks.
The commission said in a statement that the refugees were foreign nationals, but they feared persecution if they were pushed back to their native countries.
The European Rohingya Council (ERC) in has also written to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressing hope that the issue would be handled humanely.
In a letter sent on Wednesday, Dr. Hla Kyaw, chairman for the council said: "The ERC hopes that you will encourage the humanitarian part of you to stand up for the Rohingya people and cease the deportation plan."
Ali Johar, who resides in Okhla camp in New Delhi, also fled Myanmar in 2012 along with five members of his family.
The camp lacks basic facilities. Power outages are common, and most people answer the call of nature in the fields for lack of toilets.
"It is difficult to live here. But we are better off in India. We have the support of the local people," said Johar.
Deportation unlikely
Sources close to the matter claim that the government is not serious about deporting the refugees, but is using the threat as a tactic to scare them into registering themselves with the authorities.
An official at the Home Ministry told Anadolu Agency on the condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media: "I don’t think that any Rohingya Muslim is going to be deported in near future."
"The ministry is just collecting information about them," said another government official at the ministry, also speaking on condition of anonymity.
Rohingyas are an ethnic Muslim community in Myanmar, but they have been stripped of citizenship rights because the Myanmar government considers them to be illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.
In India, they are mostly settled in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Manipur, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Maharashtra, Rajasthan Haryana.
However, the highest numbers of Rohingyas are in the disputed region of Jammu Kashmir.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.
The two countries have fought three wars – in 1948, 1965 and 1971 – since they were partitioned in 1947, two of which were fought over Kashmir. Kashmiri resistance groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence, or for unification with neighboring Pakistan.
More than 70,000 people have reportedly been killed in the conflict since 1989. India maintains more than half a million troops in the disputed region.
