Dozens of Rohingya refugees living in New Delhi’s Uttam Nagar have been detained in several raids since Tuesday night despite having refugee cards issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
David Nazir, a Rohingya activist, claimed that some of the detained were taken to the airport from the police station on Wednesday, including his parents, Nazim Ahmed and Hazara Khatoon.
Nazir, a Rohingya Christian based in Uttam Nagar, told Maktoob that the remaining refugees are hiding in parks to evade police who have been visiting the accommodation rented by the Rohingyas. The house owners are warned against accommodating them.
Nazir shared the names of 29 people detained by police during the raids. This includes a list of 15 people, five women and 15 men, with UNHCR card details.
Videos captured by the detained, shared with Maktoob, show refugees sitting inside a bus.
India has intensified its crackdown on Rohingya refugees recently, putting the persecuted community in Myanmar in agony. An estimated 40,000 Rohingyas sought asylum in India. UNHCR India acknowledged the presence of 18,000 Rohingyas who are registered as refugees.
India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. Consequently, Rohingya refugees in India are often labelled as illegal immigrants under domestic laws such as the Foreigners Act of 1946. This legal stance has led to arbitrary detentions and deportations, even for individuals registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) called on India to end the arbitrary detention of Rohingyas who fled Myanmar to India and refrain from forcible deportation and return to Myanmar, where they would risk being subjected to serious human rights violations.
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. In 2022, following a rigorous factual and legal analysis, the United States determined that members of the Burmese military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya.
