Indian rights lawyer to lead UN probe into Rohingya crackdown

The United Nations yesterday appointed an Indian human rights lawyer and two other experts to a fact-finding mission investigating alleged killings, rape and torture by security forces against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

The mission will be led by Indira Jaising, an advocate of the Supreme Court of India, a UN statement said. The other two members are Harvard-trained Sri Lankan lawyer Radhika Coomaraswamy and Australian consultant Christopher Dominic.

Some 75,000 Rohingya fled northwestern Rakhine state to Bangladesh after the Myanmar army carried out a security operation in October in response to attacks by Rohingya insurgents on border posts in which nine police officers were killed.

A UN report from February, based on interviews with some of the Rohingya refugees, said Myanmar’s security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya in a campaign that “very likely” amounts to crimes against humanity and possibly ethnic cleansing.