Hours after a federal minister stated that refugees will be given apartments at New Delhi, the home ministry denied the media reports.
Hours after a federal minister said Rohingya will be given apartments in the capital, India’s home ministry has denied giving such instructions, saying the refugees would be held at a detention centre and eventually deported.
Hardeep Singh Puri Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs tweeted earlier Wednesday that the mainly Muslim refugee from Myanmar who are currently living in New Delhi will be provided with apartments and police protection.
“India has always welcomed those who have sought refuge,” Puri posted. “India respects and follows UN Refugee Convention 1951 and provides refuge to all, regardless of their race, religion or creed.”
But shortly after Puri’s tweet, the federal home ministry, headed by Amit Shah – Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s closest aide – denied the media reports.
“With respect to news reports in certain sections of media regarding Rohingya illegal foreigners, it is clarified that Ministry of Home Affairs has not given any directions to provide EWS (economically weaker section) flats to Rohingya illegal migrants at Bakkarwala in New Delhi,” the home ministry said in a statement, referring to a neighbourhood in the Indian capital’s south.
Shortest “landmark decision” ever pic.twitter.com/gqQFCuYkaE
— Piyush Rai (@Benarasiyaa) August 17, 2022
The ministry said “illegal foreigners” will be kept in a detention centre till they are deported to Myanmar. “The (state) government of Delhi has not declared the present location as a detention centre. They have been directed to do the same immediately,” it said.
Modi’s government has previously tried to send Rohingya back to predominately Buddhist Myanmar, after hundreds of thousands of them fled from persecution and waves of violence in their homeland over the years.
India is not a party to the convention. It outlines refugee rights as well as the obligations of countries to provide protection for them.
Bangladesh is sheltering nearly a million Rohingya in what has turned into the world’s largest refugee camp in the country’s south.
According to Ali Johar, a Rohingya rights activist, approximately 1,100 Rohingya were living in New Delhi as of early this year. Another 17,000 lived elsewhere in India. Many of them work as hawkers or rickshaw pullers.
Johar, 27, a 27-year-old Indian national, arrived in India ten years ago and now lives in New Delhi with his family. He estimated that about 2,000 people went back home to Bangladesh in 2018, amid fears of deportation by right-wing Hindu groups.
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