75-year-old Rohingya refugee Lalu Bibi passed away on Wednesday in a sub-jail converted ‘holding centre’ in Jammu’s Hira Nagar where she has been held since March 2021, a lawyer and Rohingya activist told Maktoob. Bibi is the seventh Rohingya refugee to die in the facility, where nearly 270 refugees remain in indefinite detention.
The cause of death is not confirmed as the body has not been released to her children, living in a refugee camp in Jammu, pending procedures. The body has been at Government Medical College Jammu in Bakshi Nagar for over a day, sources told Maktoob.
Several of the detainees, including Bibi, have refugee cards issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This week, UNHCR said in a statement that there are 676 Rohingya refugees in detention across India and 608 of them have no ongoing court cases or sentences pending.
In July last year, a five-month-old girl also died in the facility after police fired teargas at Rohingyians protesting over indefinite detention, demanding they be either deported to their homeland, Myanmar, or released.
An estimated 40,000 Rohingyas sought asylum in India. UNHCR India acknowledged the presence of 18,000 Rohingyas who are registered as refugees. In August, the Supreme Court sought a response from the Indian government on a plea seeking the release of Rohingya asylum seekers and refugees who are in indefinite detention in the country.
“These deaths are a stark reminder that we are failing in our duty—both legally and morally—to safeguard those who sought refuge on our soil,” Human rights lawyer Fazal Abdali told Maktoob. “Immediate action is needed to end the unlawful detention of refugees and to honor the legal commitments we have made under both national and international law.”
“Our Supreme Court has made it clear: prolonged detention without due process is a violation of the constitutional rights to life and liberty. Yet, we continue to hold refugees in inhumane conditions, denying them basic dignity and justice,” Abdali said.
Abdali, who is part of the legal aid team for Rohingyas, said the tragic deaths expose the brutal reality of the conditions refugees face in the Hira Nagar “Detention Centre”.
“Both (the women and the child) held valid UNHCR refugee cards, yet they perished in indefinite detention—a practice that international law, including the UN Convention Against Torture, condemns as a form of torture. These vulnerable individuals, fleeing persecution, were entitled to protection, not punishment.”
While India has not ratified the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Indian Constitution’s Article 21 provides a guarantee of the right to life to all individuals located within the territorial boundaries of the nation.
The death comes as about 103 Rohingya Muslims and 30 Christian Chin refugees, all from Myanmar, have been on a hunger strike since Monday to protest their indefinite detention at a camp in Assam. The protesters want to be handed over to UNHCR and resettled in a third country.
The deaths are due to poor medical care in the camp, Sabber Kyaw Min, Director of the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, told Maktoob.
“They have not done any crime. They fled Myanmar due to genocide and crimes against humanity and came to India,” Kyaw Min told Maktoob, blaming the UNHCR for failing to protect them.
Myanmar government troops killed an estimated 25,000 Rohingyas and forced more than 750,000 from the state as mass atrocities against the ethnic group were launched in August 2017.
A report titled “Destinies Under Detention: A Case for the Right to Dignity & Humane Treatment of Rohingya Refugees in India” published in July 2024, found that nearly “every single Rohingya inside the detention centre complains of long-term medical complications, weakness, UTIs, and various other problems that remain undetected.”
United States, in 2022, following a rigorous factual and legal analysis, determined that members of the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against Rohingya.
