NEW DELHI: All of an estimated 40,000 Rohingya Muslims living in India are illegal immigrants, even those registered with the UN refugee agency, and the government aims to deport them, a senior government official told Reuters.
Junior Interior Minister Kiren Rijiju told Parliament last week the central government had directed state authorities to identify and deport illegal immigrants including Rohingya, who face persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has issued identity cards to about 16,500 Rohingya in India that it says help them “prevent harassment, arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation.”
But Rijiju, a high-profile minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government, said in an interview on the weekend that the UNHCR registration was irrelevant.
“They are doing it, we can’t stop them from registering. But we are not signatory to the accord on refugees,” he said.
“As far as we are concerned they are all illegal immigrants They have no basis to live here. Anybody who is illegal migrant will be deported.”
The UNHCR’s India office said on Monday the principle of non-refoulement — or not sending back refugees to a place where they face danger — was considered part of customary international law and binding on all states whether they have signed the Refugee Convention or not.
The office said it had not received any official word about a plan to deport Rohingya refugees, and had not got any reports deportations were taking place.
The treatment of the roughly one million Rohingya in Myanmar has emerged as its most contentious human rights issue as it makes a transition from decades of harsh military rule.
The Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and classified as illegal immigrants, despite claiming roots there that go back centuries, with communities marginalized and occasionally subjected to communal violence.
Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled from Myanmar, with many taking refuge in Bangladesh, and some then crossing a porous border into Hindu-majority India.
Many have also headed to Southeast Asia, often on rickety boats run by people-smuggling gangs.
Rohingya are generally vilified in India and over the past few months, there has been a string of anti-Rohingya protests.
Rijiju declined to comment on the deportation process, even as some human rights activists question the practicality of rounding up and expelling thousands of people scattered across the country.
“There’s a procedure, there is a rule of law,” Rijiju said.
“We can’t throw them out just like that. We can’t dump them in the Bay of Bengal.”
India said on Friday it was in talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar about the deportation plan.
But deportation is likely to be difficult, given Myanmar’s position that all Rohingya need to be scrutinized before they can be allowed back in as citizens.
Myanmar officials were not immediately available for comment.
A senior government official in Bangladesh, which has complained of being burdened by the heavy flow of refugees, has said India was helping it solve the crisis.
More than 75,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh since Oct. 9 after an insurgent group attacked Myanmar border police posts, prompting a security crackdown in which troops have been accused of murder and rape of Rohingya civilians.
Delhi to deport all Rohingya regardless of UN registration
Delhi to deport all Rohingya regardless of UN registration
‘I admire Vision 2030’: Bangladesh’s new PM aims for stronger Saudi, GCC ties
- Saudi Arabia congratulates Tarique Rahman on assuming Bangladesh’s top office
- Relations between Bangladesh and Kingdom were formalized during his father’s rule
DHAKA: After 17 years in exile, Tarique Rahman has taken office as prime minister of Bangladesh, inheriting his parents’ political legacy and facing immediate economic and political challenges.
Rahman led his Bangladesh Nationalist Party to a landslide victory in the Feb. 12 general election, winning an absolute majority with 209 of 300 parliamentary seats and marking the party’s return to power after two decades.
The BNP was founded by his father, former President Ziaur Rahman, a 1971 Liberation War hero. After his assassination in 1981, Rahman’s mother, Khaleda Zia, took over the party’s helm and served two full terms as prime minister — in 1991 and 2001.
Rahman and his cabinet, whose members were sworn in alongside him on Tuesday, take over from an interim administration which governed Bangladesh for 18 months after former premier Sheikh Hasina — the BNP’s archrival who ruled consecutively for 15 years — was toppled in the 2024 student-led uprising.
As he begins his term, the new prime minister’s first tasks will be to rebuild the economy — weakened by uncertainty during the interim administration — and to restore political stability. Relations with the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia and other GCC states, are also high on his agenda.
“Saudi Arabia is one of our long-standing friends,” Rahman told Arab News at his office in Dhaka, two days before his historic election win.
“I admire the Saudi Vision 2030, and I am sincerely looking forward to working with the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. BNP always had a great relationship with the Muslim world, especially GCC nations — UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman — and I look forward to working closely with GCC countries and their leadership to build a long-term trusting partnership with mutual interest,” Rahman said.
The Saudi government congratulated him on assuming the top office on Tuesday, wishing prosperity to the Bangladeshi people.
Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia established formal diplomatic relations in August 1975, and the first Bangladeshi ambassador presented his credentials in late 1976, after Rahman’s father rose to power. That year, Bangladesh also started sending laborers, engineers, doctors, and teachers to work in the Kingdom.
Today, more than 3 million Bangladeshis live and work in Saudi Arabia — the largest expat group in the Kingdom and the biggest Bangladeshi community outside the country.
“I recall that when my father, President Ziaur Rahman, was in office, bilateral relations between our two nations were initiated,” Rahman said. “During the tenure of my mother, the late Begum Khaleda Zia, as prime minister, those relations became even stronger.”
Over the decades, Saudi Arabia has not only emerged as the main destination for Bangladesh’s migrant workers but also one of its largest development and emergency aid donors.
Weeks after Rahman’s mother began her first term as prime minister in 1991, Bangladesh was struck by one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in its history. Riyadh was among the first who offered assistance, and Zia visited Saudi Arabia on her earliest foreign tour and performed Hajj in June 1991.
For Rahman, who had been living in London since 2008 and returned to Bangladesh in December — just days before his mother’s death — the Kingdom will also be one of the first countries he plans to visit.
“I would definitely like to visit Saudi Arabia early in my term,” he said. “Personally, I also wish to visit the holy mosque, Al-Masjid Al-Haram, Makkah, to perform Umrah.”
