Taking on the government’s critics, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday asked why they should object to deporting illegal immigrants if Myanmar is willing to take back the Rohingyas.
His comments, made at the ‘National Seminar on Good Governance, Development and Human Rights’ organised by the National Human Rights Commission, follows the MHA’s affidavit supporting the government’s stand to deport them.
The NHRC had asked the home ministry for a report saying its intervention in allowing the Rohingya is “appropriate from the human rights angle.”
“Rohingya are not refugees. They have not come here after following proper procedures. No Rohingya has applied for asylum. They are illegal immigrants,” he said.
Singh also said that India is not violating any international convention and is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugees Convention. On Monday, the MHA submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court saying Rohingya pose a serious security threat to India. He also added that providing facilities to the illegal immigrants out of the existing national resources would have an adverse impact on Indian citizens.
Foreign nationals
On August 18, the NHRC sought a report from the MHA and said: “Refugees are no doubt foreign nationals but they are human beings and before taking a big step, the Government of India has to look into every aspect of the situation, keeping the fact in focus that the members of the Rohingya community, who have crossed the Indian borders and are residing here for long, have a fear of persecution once they are pushed back to their native country”.
Published 21 September 2017, 20:38 IST