The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
‘We wanted to live in a place with some Muslim population’
AT THIS two-storey community hall in Kelambakkam, a Chennai suburb, cotton saris act as a partition for Rohingya families. There are 19 families living here, including some 40 children, dependent on the scrap they collect every day.
Their journey to Tamil Nadu, through Bangladesh and Kolkata, was through middlemen. The first of the families landed here weeks after the riots in July 2012 left hundreds of Rohingyas dead.
“We paid Rs 9,000 per head to flee Bangladesh. It was a long bus journey to Kolkata. We spent only two days there as there were so many criminals and thieves around. An agent promised us the work of collecting scrap in Chennai,” says Mohammed Yusuf, the 28-year-old representative of the group.
They first moved to the community hall four years ago, and say they also earn more now. “The agent promised us Rs 400 and finally paid us only Rs 100 or sometimes just gave us food. Now we earn up to Rs 300 per day,” says Muhammed Rafeeq, who has a family of six.
The Rohingyas say most of their money is spent on mobile data packs — their only window to those left behind in Myanmar. “We call them only in the night as using a phone is also a crime there. My sister was sentenced to three years after she was caught talking to me,” says one of them, who did not want to be named.
The UNHCR discovered their presence in Chennai only in 2014, when members of a local masjid brought five families to it. “Then UNHCR officials started proceedings to get them registration cards,” a senior state government official says.
"If the UNHCR helps stop the violence in Myanmar, we will definitely go back," says Noor Khaida, 16. Meanwhile, she has learnt to read and write Tamil. ZIA-UR-RAHMAN of Al Le Than Kyaw village, Rakhine, says it was but natural that he came to Hyderabad. “We are welcome here, unlike in Bangladesh, where they despise us. At the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, migrating to Hyderabad is the first preference,” says the 30-year-old, standing outside his hut in Hyderabad’s Camp No. 8.
There are 3,200 Rohingyas living in 12 camps around Hyderabad, as per UNHCR figures. Their stories almost all mirror Zia-urrahman’s, who fled after sectarian violence in 2012. The camps have huts of cardboard and blue plastic sheets, for which each family pays Rs 600 as rent to the plot owners.
Two weeks ago, two community toilets came up in Camp No. 6, with the help of the UNHCR and Confederation of Voluntary Organisations (COVA), and water connection was provided.
A majority of the Rohingyas in Hyderabad work in meat factories and meat shops. “They earn Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000 a month. The rest work as scrap collectors or daily wagers,” says Zubair Mohammed, the coordinator at the UNHCR office at Chandrayangutta.
Aziz ur Rahman, in Camp No. 11, says there are few elderly in the camps, as they generally stay back in Bangladesh and send the younger ones to India. “They arrange the marriage of their sons or daughters and the couples leave for India together. It ensures safety for the girls, and also the couples have a chance of getting rehabilitated quickly,” says the 24year-old.
In Buthidaung Township area in Rakhine, he was a wellto-do landlord, living in a two-storied house with his wife and two children, says Mohammed Nazrul, in Camp No. 6. “When violence started in 2012, the government took away my land. We fled to Bangladesh. Then, I worked as a labourer at Cox’s Bazar and paid an agent Rs 6,000 to help us cross over into India. In Kolkata, I worked as a labourer for a fortnight and saved money to purchase train tickets. From Howrah, we came to Hyderabad,” says the 40-year-old.
Nazrul remembers the 26-hour journey, 14 months ago. “We had no money to even purchase food on the train. When we got down at the station, some autorickshaw drivers pooled money and gave it to us.”
At the camp, the family shares a small hut with four others who arrived recently. A portable TV occupies pride of place, drawing many from all over the camp to watch Bengali and Hindi serials and movies.
Zia-ur-rahman says he and his friend Zazumddin, from Drajaza village in Rakhine, first travelled from Kolkata to Punjab, where they worked at a meat factory. “But we wanted to live in a place with some Muslim population... We work as scrap collectors and make Rs 300 each per day,” Mohammed Salim says, who met Zia-ur-rahman first at Cox's Bazar.
He adds that he continues to be in touch with relatives and friends back in Rakhine. “The news gets worse each passing week. We think of home but I do not think we will ever be able to go there.”
Rashida Begum, 21, in Camp. No 12, shudders at the thought of it. “They will HYDERABAD chop us there. In whatever conditions we are living here, we are much better of,” says Rashida, who fled from Caab Bazar.
The Rohingya children go to two government primary schools, and two private schools. “Some eight-year-old kids recently had to start from Class 1,” a COVA offical says.
Zubair Mohammed, 26, the coordinator at the UNHCR’S Hyderabad office, is one of the few Rohingyas to have studied in an English-medium school, and hence crucial to helping newly arrived refugees settle in.
He arrived with his young bride at Hyderabad in August 2015. Unlike the others who left Bangladesh in haste, Zubair says he and his father stayed there for 12 years, doing odd jobs. Finally, before he left for India, the family married Zubair to a girl from their village.
After duty hours at the UNHCR office, where he works as an interpreter, he runs a mobile accessories shop.
Sitting at a house that he has rented out, overlooking the slum with other refugees, he says he misses his parents and grandparents, “who refuse to come and prefer to live in Bangladesh”. And keep hoping that one day they can go back to Myanmar.