India’s Response to the Rohingya Crisis
Context:
- Recently, Union Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Puri tweeted that Rohingya refugees would be shifted to flats meant for economically weaker sections (EWS), and provided with basic amenities and police protection.
What is the current status?
- Around 1,200 Rohingya have been identified as among the first batch to have arrived in Delhi in 2012.
- This was identified after the Rohingyas protested outside the UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) office in Delh
- After a fire accident which broke out in one of the camps where the refugees lived, they are being shifted to EWS flats which were to be designated as a detention centre and would be put under constant police watch.
Who are the Rohingyas?
- They hail from the Rakhine province of west Myanmar and the language which they use to communicate is of Bengali dialect.
- Myanmar has classified the Rohingyas as resident foreigners or associate citizens in their country.
- The Rohingyas were forced to leave Myanmar in large numbers after several waves of violence, which first began in 2012.
- The Myanmar army revived the attacks in 2017 and lakhs took shelter in Bangladesh. Around five lakh Rohingya fled to Saudi Arabia in 2012 it was during the same time they arrived to Delhi in 2012.
Process involved in Deportation:
- Illegal immigrants are detected, detained and deported under provisions of the Passport Act, 1920 or the Foreigners Act, 1946 according to the MHA,
- State governments and Union Territories have also been delegated the powers to identify and deport them.
- Once a ‘foreigner’ has been apprehended by the police for staying illegally, without any document, he or she is produced before the local court. If the accused is found guilty, they can be imprisoned for three months to eight years.
- After completing their sentence, the court orders deportation, the foreign inmates are moved to detention centres till the country of origin verifies and accepts them.
Source The Hindu
