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India’s treatment of Rohingya Muslims like sending them ‘back into killing field’: rights group

  • A report by Fortify Rights, a non-governmental group, said Indian authorities were beating Rohingya refugees, denying them due process rights and indefinitely detaining them
  • India’s alleged abuse of Rohingya comes as ‘many politicians over the years have stirred up anti-Rohingya sentiment’, the group adds

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Rohingya children wait to receive food handouts in Bangladesh. Fearing arbitrary arrest by Indian authorities, some refugees were said to have fled from India to Bangladesh. Photo: AP
India should cease a crackdown on Rohingya Muslims fleeing persecution and investigate human rights violations by its officials, an NGO group has urged, after it said an investigation had found the refugees faced illegal arrests, beatings and even the forceful separation of an infant from the mother.
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Sectarian violence has over the decades displaced more than a million Rohingya from Buddhist-majority Myanmar, with most claiming asylum in Bangladesh. Some groups also travel to India, where a report by rights group Fortify Rights documented evidence of Indian authorities beating Rohingya refugees, denying them due process rights, and indefinitely detaining hundreds, in some cases for several years.

The group said immigration officials in late July detained dozens of Rohingya in northern Uttar Pradesh state, while in a separate incident a week earlier, hundreds of refugees in Jammu faced tear gas and beatings after protesting their indefinite detention, including through a hunger strike.

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar outside a mosque in Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, India in March 2021. Many Hindu groups have demanded the expulsion of Rohingyas from India. Photo: EPA-EFE
Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar outside a mosque in Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, India in March 2021. Many Hindu groups have demanded the expulsion of Rohingyas from India. Photo: EPA-EFE

“India should provide a safe haven for Rohingya fleeing genocidal attacks and other international crimes in Myanmar,” said Zaw Win, human rights specialist at Fortify Rights. “Rather than continuing their persecution, the Indian government should allow Rohingya refugees access to legal status, education, livelihoods and freedom of movement.”

Fearing arbitrary arrest by Indian authorities, some Rohingya refugees were said to have fled from India to Bangladesh, the group said.

John Quinley III, a director at Fortify Rights, told This Week in Asia that India should uphold the rights of refugees and urgently end the detention of Rohingya Muslims.

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“We found that Rohingya children, youth, women and men are all detained,” Quinley said, adding that Rohingya youth who want to be educated and serve their community were instead being detained for years on end.

He noted India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had been casting the community in a negative light.

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