Activists say the detained refugees possess valid UNHCR cards
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Officials of FRRO with assistance from Delhi Police detained a Rohingya family from Kanchen Kunj (Madanpur Khader), Sarita Vihar, in New Delhi on Wednesday morning, Rohingya community activists said.
The family of four identified as 80-year-old Sultan Ahmad, his wife Halima Hatu and their two sons Noor Mohammad and Usman Gani were picked up and taken to a detention camp near Shastri Park metro station, the activists said.
Eyewitnesses who saw the police detaining the family alleged that Halima, who is old and ill, was not even allowed to take her medicines with her.
With the detention of these four people, the number of refugees detained in Delhi during the past eight days has reached 18.
In a similar operation on March 24, FRRO aided by local police picked up 12, seven male and five female refugees including a pregnant lady, from their camps in Madanpur Khader and Sharam Vihar near Okhla.
Four days later two more Rohingya refugees were detained at Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station while they were travelling back to Hyderabad from Delhi.
The activists say that the detained refugees possessed valid UNHCR cards.
Clarion India tried to reach out to FRRO and Delhi Police for comments but there was no response to phone calls.
The FRRO operations have sparked a panic among the refugees who say that they fear they may also be detained. “Police come here every now and then and ask us to vacate the camp,” said a woman refugee in Kanchen Kunj camp. “We are facing a tough time this year.”
There are also reports that on Tuesday some goons visited the camp and threatened to set fire to the shelters.
These detentions are seen as part of a crackdown against Rohingya refugees who India considers as “illegal immigrants”. India wants to deport them to Myanmar from where they had fled after cases of large-scale persecution. The country is currently passing through a new wave of violence following military coup in early February.
Earlier this month, authorities in Jammu and Kashmir detained more than 160 refugees from their camps and lodged them in a jail in Hiranagar.
Subsequently, nearly 80 refugees who travelled from Jammu to Delhi seeking protection from the United Nations Refugee Agency were rounded up and put in detention centres.
The crackdown has prompted human rights lawyers to approach the Supreme Court calling for release of the detained refugees. The court after hearing the arguments from both sides on March 26 reserved its order.
