Staff Reporter, AW
01May 2017
Rohingya families sheltered in India-administered Kashmir have started to flee to avoid untoward incidence by the nationalist Hindu parties. Reports in different Kashmiri media focused that atleast 35 Rohingya reugee families have slready left, while another 180 more families seem to be packing their bags to leave the place.
On the otherhand, a report of AFP said yesterday that 30 Rohingya refugees including children along with two Indian navy men on board were rescued on Sunday 30 April by the Sri Lankan Coastguards while they were in an attempt to enter the country. They appeared to flee India where they were been for four years.
Reports say there are around four thousand Rohingya families in the Hindu dominated Jammu region which are at risk of attacks by the extremist Hindutva groups whose influence in the region is increasing.
In early April, an influential Indian pressure group dominated by Hindutva elements gave a ten day ultimatum to identify and kill Rohingya refugees unless they left the region immediately. Since then, there has been regular threats and attacks from miscreants, including arson attacks on Rohingya huts.
The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party(JKNP) -a right-wing groups in Indian- administered Kashmir run a campaign against Rohingya Muslims, as a result refugees feared having to flee again.
India has been receiving Rohingya refugees from Myanmar since 2008. They arrived in large numbers during 2012, when anti-Rohingya persecution intensified in neighbouringMyanmar.
According to figures shared by the Development and Justice Initiative (DAJI), a non-governmental organisation that works with theUNHCR, and based on UNHCR data, there are an estimated 10,000 Rohingya refugees living in India. Approximately 5,700 live in and around the city of Jammu in Indian-administered Kashmir, although some sources claim the number could, in fact, be much higher.
But in early February, the Rohingya refugees started to notice billboards appearing around the city. “Rohingyas, Bangladeshis quit Jammu,” they declared, asking residents to “Wake up … save history, culture and identity of Dogras,” referring to the Hindu-majority community of Jammu.
The JKNP, a Hindu political party, whose leader, Harsh Dev Singh, has made public statements about a conspiracy to engineer “demographic changes” in the region, is behind the billboards.
Similarly, a member of the BJP, Hunar Gupta, petitioned the Jammu High Court, seeking the identification and deportation of Rohingya refugees. Arguing the case for Gupta, senior advocate Sunil Sethi, who is also the chief spokesperson for the BJP in the state, said there had been a sharp increase in the number of undocumented migrants from Myanmar . He feared that these people may be s target of Muslim extremist of Kashmir to comit crime and unrest in the region.
