For the past four days, 31 Rohingya Muslims, including 16 children, have been stuck at a no man’s land along the international border in Tripura, thanks to the ongoing blame game between India and Bangladesh. On Saturday, Border Security Force (BSF) officials said that six men, nine women and 16 children were detained by the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).
They have been stuck behind the fencing at Rayermura in West Tripura district since then. While BGB says that Rohingyas came from India and BSF, on the other hand, denied the claims. BSF has also offered the BGB a joint survey of the fencing on the Indian side to identify a possible breach. The two sides even met twice on Saturday for talks but failed to resolve the issue.
FILE PHOTO – A family, who says they belong to the Burmese Rohingya Community from Myanmar, eats their breakfast at a makeshift shelter in a camp in New Delhi, India, May 14, 2012. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi/File Photo
“We are supplying water and other basic needs from our own resources to the Rohingyas on humanitarian grounds since last night,” Deputy Inspector General CL Belwa told PTI on Sunday.
Rohingya Muslims are described as the world’s most persecuted minority in the world by the United Nations. In 2017, thousands left the violence-hit Rakhine state in Myanmar to escape the brutal crackdown by the military. It triggered a massive refugee crisis in the subcontinent and many Rohingya Muslims took refuge in Bangladesh.
Since then, there have been instances of an illegal influx of refugees into India, which triggered a debate across the country. While many said that Rohingya Muslims should be given asylum in the country, critics argued that it could pose a threat to national security.
A Rohingya settlement near Kalindi Kunj, Delhi. (Courtesy: Express photo/Oinam Anand)
In January last year, six Rohingya refugees were detained from Tripura’s Dharmanagar who were heading towards Assam in search of jobs. Four months later, 18 Rohingyas were detained from western Tripura for illegally entering India.
In October 2018, the Union Home Ministry asked all states to identify Rohingya refugees and collect their biometric details.
As per a BBC report, an estimated 40,000 Rohingya refugees stay in India, out of which 18,000 are registered as refugees by the United Nations. They are spread across refugee camps, mostly in Delhi and Jammu.
(Feature image is representational | Source: Reuters)
