BSF deports four Rohingya Muslims from Tripura

 

This is the first such instance of Rohingya Muslims being sent back since the Home Minsitry has issued a circular to this effect on August 19 this year.

A BSF official said that they have caught 17 illegal migrants and handed them over to the police. He also said that they have identified 75 vulnerable locations on a 21-km stretch of the international border in Tripura.

“This year, 17 Rohingya Muslims were caught along the Tripura and Assam border. They were handed over to the police and action is being taken against them,” The Hindu quoted a BSF official as saying on condition of anonymity.

Asked how they identified the Rohingya, he said, “The Bengali dialect they speak is different from that spoken in India and Bangladesh. It is not difficult to identify them. They could have travelled from the Cox Bazar area [a large number of Rohingya has taken shelter here] in Bangladesh all the way to the Tripura border.”

Meanwhile, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has voiced its opposition to deport the Rohingya Muslims and sought a report from the Union Home Ministry.

Assam and Manipur had asked the State police and the BSF to push back any Rohingya Muslim attempting to enter the country.

The Centre had already explained its position on this issue in the Supreme Court by endorsing that Rohingyas were a national security threat to India. Some of them have links with Pakistan-based terror organisations.

There was an organised influx of “illegal” immigrants from Mynamar through agents and touts facilitating illegal immigration of Rohingya into India via Benapole-Haridaspur (West Bengal), Hili (West Bengal), Sonamora (Tripura), Kolkata and Guwahati, the Centre clarified in the apex court.

The spokesperson of the Home Ministry said that such illegal immigrants avoid the legal routes and use surreptitious ways to enter India.