Top court in India rejects plea to deport Rohingyas

By Ahmad Adil

NEW DELHI (AA) – A top Indian court ruled Thursday that Rohingya refugees detained last month in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir will not be deported without following the proper procedure.

The country’s Supreme Court was recently approached over the “detention” of over 150 Rohingya Muslim refugees in Jammu on March 6 for being “illegal immigrants.”

The apex court presided over by Chief Justice Sharad Arvind Bobde, in its ruling stated: "It is made clear that the Rohingyas in Jammu, on whose behalf the present application is filed, shall not be deported unless the procedure prescribed for such deportation is followed.”

The court, however, rejected the petition for the detained Rohingyas’ release and a direction to stop their planned deportation. “It is not possible to grant the interim relief prayed for,” the court said in the order.

The government prosecutor on March 26 while opposing the plea, said, “India cannot become the international capital of illegal immigrants,” according to the local daily Hindustan Times.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, representing the petitioners in the case, was unavailable for comments.

The authorities have lodged the Rohingyas in a “holding center” set up under the Foreigners Act in the Hiranagar sub-jail of Kathua district in Jammu, which was established under a government notification dated March 5.

Ali Jauhar, a Rohingya youth leader, recently told Anadolu Agency that over 12 Rohingya community members have been detained in the capital New Delhi since March 24.

- Persecuted people

According to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and children, fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development Agency (OIDA).

More than 34,000 Rohingya were thrown into fires, over 114,000 more were beaten, and as many as 18,000 Rohingya women and girls were raped by Myanmar’s army and police, said the OIDA report, titled Forced Migration of Rohingya: The Untold Experience.

Over 115,000 Rohingya homes were burned and 113,000 others vandalized, the report added.