Rohingya find no love in India, Nepal
NEW DELHI: Detested in Myanmar, the Rohingya desperately seeking sanctuary will get a new reminder of just how unloved they are in India, too.
Today, the Indian government is to put its case to the country’s Supreme Court for expelling up to 40,000 who have arrived over the past 10 years.
According to media reports, the government will argue that the Rohingya are a security threat, who could aid terrorists.
There are 16,000 Rohingya registered in India according to the United Nations, but many more are undocumented. Officials say nearly 7,000 live in shanties in Jammu in the Himalayas, where they started arriving in 2008.
Jammu itself is a Hindu-majority state, but is part of the same state as neighbouring Kashmir, where India is fighting separatists — which is what worries the New Delhi government.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in Jammu has sought court orders to evict the Rohingya from the state. One business group threatened to kill the Rohingya if they were not moved.
Last week, a dead cow was found near a Rohingya settlement on the edge of Jammu city.
According to Shafi Alam, a refugee who arrived in 2008, Hindu activists torched shanties after accusing them of killing the cow.
In the capital, there are 47 families living in dilapidated rooms at Kanchan Kunj camp.
They say they would rather suffer there than return to the hell of their former lives in Myanmar.
The residents include Mohammad Salimullah, a grocery store owner and one of two Rohingya petitioners challenging the government at the Supreme Court.
“I would rather have the government kill us or put us in jail than have us deported there (Myanmar). If we go back there, they will cut us into pieces and stack us 10-15 people together and set us on fire,” he said.
In Nepal, about 250 Rohingya live in a slum in northern Kathmandu, anxiously awaiting news of relatives fleeing Rakhine.
Rafiq Alam, 28, who arrived with his wife and two sons after violence in 2012, said his home village “now looks like a field. They burnt the whole village and reduced it to ashes”.
Nepal has no plans to take action against the Rohingya, but it is also attempting to prevent more from arriving.
“Nepal has increased surveillance at its border to stop more Rohingya from entering the country after the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar because we cannot bear any more crisis,” said Home Ministry spokesman Ram Krishna Subedi.
Despite their fears, some Rohingya say they pine for home.
“At the end of the day, this is a foreign land for us,” said Salimullah in Delhi.
“I do feel like going back home sometimes because our parents gave birth to us at home. But kids here, they are born on the streets, in the slums. What will happen to their children?
“And when they do grow up, they won’t be able to say ‘this is my home, this is my country’.”AFP