By IANS
Aug 18, 2017
HYDERABAD: Anxiety
is writ large on the faces of over 3,800 Rohingya
Muslims living in this city amid reports that the Indian government is planning to deport them. They
say they prefer to die here rather than return to Myanmar,
where they face persecution.
Having lived here
for over five years now, the refugees say they would not like to return to
their native country to be slaughtered. They have appealed to the Indian
government to drop, on humanitarian grounds, the plans to deport them.
"We thank India
for allowing us to stay. If the government wants to deport us, it can do it but
it will be better if they kill us here instead of sending us back," Abdul
Raheem, a refugee, told IANS in a voice
choked with emotion. http://m.economictimes.com/topic/refugee
Raheem, 32, who has
been living here with his wife and three children since 2012, said they could
think of returning to their country only after they were assured of protection
of their life and property.
Another refugee,
Mohammad Younus, alleged that Buddhist-majority Myanmar always went back on its
assurances in the past. "This is the third time that I have become a
refugee. They never kept their word," said the 63-year-old while narrating
his tale of woe.
Younus, who is
staying here with his wife and daughter, showed a bullet mark on his shoulder.
Myanmar Army fired on him and since he was not treated in his country, he had
to go to Bangladesh to remove the bullet.
Raheem says he was
an agriculturist in Arkan (now Rakhine)
state in Myanmar but the authorities took away his land. "We had to escape
to save our lives. My two brothers went to Bangladesh but I came here," he
said. http://m.economictimes.com/topic/Rakhine
Younus was a
businessman in Arkan and his property was also taken away by the government.
His suffering did not end with his arrival in India. His was among 125 families
which had to leave Jammu and come here about three months ago.
"Some people
drove us out of our camps in Jammu. There is no end to our suffering," he
said, crying inconsolably.
Like the majority of
refugees, Raheem works as a daily wage labourer for Rs 500. They get the work
only for 15 days in a month.
Younus runs a small
shop. His two sons Zia-ul-Haq and Shams-ul-Haq are ragpickers and live with
their families in separate huts. Despite this penury, they are content with
their life in India.
Hyderabad has the
second-largest concentration of Rohingyas after Jammu, where the number is
estimated at 7,000.
The families have
been living in huts or small one-room rented houses in areas like Balapur,
Shaheen Nagar, Jalpally, Asad Baba Nagar, Pahadi Shareef on Hyderabad's
southern periphery.
There are 16,000
Rohangiyas in India registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees (UNHCR) but the total number is estimated to be 40,000.
In Hyderabad, there
are 3,800 Rohangiyas with refugee cards. "We can talk about only those who
are registered with us," said Mazher Hussain, Executive Director,
Confederation of Voluntary Associations (COVA), a partnering agency with UNHCR.
Minister of State
for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had told parliament last week that the states
were directed to identify and deport illegal immigrants. He later told a news
agency that all Rohingyas, including those registered with UNHCR, are illegal
immigrants.
Rohingyas wonder why
the Indian authorities viewed them as a threat to national security.
"We escaped from
our country to save our lives; how can we do anything to harm this country
which has given us shelter?" said Mohammad Toha, 31, who lives in Balapur
with his wife and three children.
COVA's Hussain felt
that while the security concern is genuine, stigmatizing the entire Rohangiya
community will not help with security tracking.
"In any
community there will be all sorts of people. A few people will have criminal
instincts. They may engage in crime for monetary gains or indulge in
anti-national activity due to ideology or anger against the government. Here we
don't see any reason for Rohingyas to be angry with the Indian government or
system. In fact most of them are very beholden, but you can't 100 per cent rule
out anybody," he said.
The COVA director
said since the police had the record of all those who engage in the criminal activity,
the authorities should keep a tab on them instead of viewing the entire
community with suspicion.
Hussain was of the
view that registration with UNHCR facilitates tracking of Rohingyas. "Even
if they are deported they may still come and stay illegally. It is difficult to
identify them as foreigners. It's also easy to get Aadhaar, PAN and other
cards. That will be a bigger security threat," he explained.