Over 150 Rohingyas living illegally in Jammu sent to ‘holding center’

More than 150 Rohingyas, who escaped persecution in Myanmar, have been sent to a ''holding center' after they were found living illegally in Jammu during a verification process started by the government in the Union Territory (UT).

The J&K government started a drive to collect biometric and other details of Rohingyas staying in Jammu on Saturday as part of an exercise to trace foreigners living in the city without valid documents.

Officials said on the very first day of the drive over 150 illegal immigrant Rohingyas were traced and later sent to Hiranagar jail in Kathua district, which has been turned into a “holding centre” for the Rohingyas.

The process was started on the directions from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) since the verifications were not carried out for over a year now, he said and added the verification process is likely to continue in the coming days.

Following prosection in their country, Rohingyas, a Bengali-dialect speaking Muslim minority in Myanmar, entered India illegally through Bangladesh and took shelter in Jammu and other parts of India. Government estimates put their number living in Jammu and Kashmir at 5,700.

Myanmar’s security forces are accused of killings, gang-rape and arson during a crackdown that drove more than 730,000 people to flee western Rakhine state for neighbouring Bangladesh after some Rohingya insurgents attacked police posts in August 2017.

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.

Meanwhile, Rohangiyas while talking to reporters said that they are living in Jammu for several years now. “We are living in Jammu since 2012 and reached here from Bangladesh after running out of Burma due to the genocide,” one of them told reporters.