Rohingya will be deported from J&K: Union Minister

Stating that Rohingya Muslims living in Jammu and Kashmir won’t get Indian citizenship by “any means”, Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh on Friday asserted they will be deported from the union territory (UT).

“We have a sizeable population of Rohingyas here and they have to go,” Singh said while speaking at the inaugural ceremony of a three-day workshop on General Financial rules in Jammu.

He asserted that there were “no ifs and buts” over Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) implementation in the UT.

“They [Rohingya] are not part of the six religious minorities [Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian] in three neighbouring states [Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan]. Its immediate implication would be in relation to Rohingyas here. A list of such individuals will be prepared, and their biometric data also collected,” the minister said.

Rohingya Muslims have fled from Myanmar and government estimate puts their number living in Jammu and Kashmir at 5,700. “What deportation arrangements will be put in place and how they would be deported will be looked into by the Centre,” he said.

Myanmar’s security forces are accused of killings, gangrape and arson during a crackdown that drove more than 7,30,000 people to flee western Rakhine state for neighbouring Bangladesh after some Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts in August 2017. Some of these refugees have also fled to India.

The central government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court in 2017 describing around 40,000 Rohingya refugees living in India as “a security threat” and said they must be deported to Myanmar.

The apex court is likely to hear on January 10 a batch of petitions filed by Rohingya immigrants about their living conditions, and the Centre’s statement.