Even as the issue of Rohingyas has been a cause of simmering politically divisive one for some years, it got ignited yet again on Tuesday dring protests against Bangladesh staged by various organisations in Jammu. The Jammu Bar president as also leaders of some Hindu organisations have vehemently demanded that illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants be evicted from the region.
Pertinently, few thousand Rohingya refugees have been living in the Jammu region for years in the temporary settlements which have been allowed over the years by a political class, much against the wishes of Jammu’s local population. The BJP has long been demanding their eviction, alleging they have been living there with the help of Kashmir Valley-based parties.
The Shiv Sena Dogra Front also held a protest at Rani Park in Jammu against alleged atrocities on Hindus in Bangladesh. Front president Ashok Gupta said Hindus were being killed in Bangladesh while “illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya settlers are being provided facilities in Jammu”.Chief minister Omar Abdullah and his father, Farooq Abdullah, last year dropped a bombshell when they claimed that Rohingya refugees were being settled in the region by the BJP-led central government.
The war of words started after the Jammu administration snapped water and power connections to the Rohingya refugees, prompting Omar to ask the Centre to deport them as and when they want, but not to treat them as animals as long as they are here.The BJP then asked the Lieutenant Governor's administration to order a CBI probe to fix responsibility for the Rohingya settlement, but no step is known to have been taken.
The government had earlier launched a crackdown on locals who had rented their properties to Rohingya refugees in Jammu, who include Hindus and Muslims. Hundreds of Rohingya refugees have been put in a detention centre in Jammu.India has been receiving Rohingya refugees from Myanmar since 2008. They arrived in large numbers during 2012, when anti-Rohingya persecution intensified in neighbouring Myanmar.
According to figures shared by the Development and Justice Initiative (DAJI), a non-governmental organisation that works with the UNHCR, and based on UNHCR data, there are an estimated 10,000 Rohingya refugees living in India. Approximately 5,700 live in and around the city of Jammu although some sources claim the number could, in fact, be much higher.Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party, a right-wing Hindu political party, whose leader, Harsh Dev Singh, has made public statements in the past about a conspiracy to engineer “demographic changes” in the region, is behind the billboards.
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