Myanmar willing to take Rohingyas, why you object to deportation: Rajnath

Team Udayavani, Sep 21, 2017, 3:10 PM IST

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday took on critics of government’s policy on Rohingyas, saying why they have an objection to the deportation of “illegal immigrants” when Myanmar is willing to take them.

His comments came at the ‘National Seminar on Good Governance, Development and Human Rights’ organised by National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), which had sought a report from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) saying its intervention is “appropriate from the human rights angle”.

Days after the MHA submitted a strong affidavit supporting government’s plans to deport Rohingyas, Singh also asked some people were objecting to the deportation of Rohingyas when Myanmar was ready to accept them.
“The Rohingyas are not refugees. They have not come here after following proper procedures. No Rohingya has applied for asylum. They are illegal immigrants,” he said.

Noting that India is not violating any international law in deporting Rohingyas, he said that the country is not a signatory to the UN Refugees Convention 1951. He said also referred to the humanitarian assistance to Bangladesh in handling the Rohingya crisis.

The MHA had on Monday submitted an affidavit in Supreme Court on Rohingyas, saying they pose a serious security threat to the country. It also said providing facilities to illegal immigrants out of the existing national resources would have a direct adverse impact on Indian citizens.

On August 18, the NHRC sought a report from the MHA and said, “refugees are no doubt foreign nationals but they are human beings and before taking a big step, the Government of India has to look into every aspect of the situation, keeping the fact into focus that the members of the Rohingya community, who have crossed into the Indian borders and are residing here for long, have a fear of persecution once they are pushed back to their native country”.

The NHRC intervention came ten days after the MHA told states that they have powers to identify and deport such people while noting that infiltration from Rakhine state of Myanmar in the recent years has become a burden on the limited resources of the country. It also warned that illegal immigrants not only infringe on the rights of Indian citizens but also aggravates the security challenges posed to the country.