Why 200-odd Myanmarese refugees are languishing in Indian jails after serving their prison terms

Ko Zaw’s uncle has been in a jail in Manipur after he entered India illegally looking for a job. “There are no stable employment opportunities in Myanmar, so he sought a better life here,” Zaw said.

Originally from the Sagaing region of Myanmar, the 45-year-old was arrested by Manipur police during a drive in 2021 to check for illegal immigrants from across the border. He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment under the Foreigners’ Act.

Three years after his jail term ended, he is still in prison.

“We kindly request the Indian government to release my uncle, as he has already completed his jail term,” said Zaw. “All his family members live in rural areas, particularly in conflict zones.”

Ko Zaw’s uncle is not alone. About 200 Myanmar refugees are currently in detention centres in Manipur and Assam, despite having completed their jail terms and paid fines for their release, activists, family members and lawyers representing them told Scroll. They want to return to Myanmar or wish to be shifted to Mizoram, which hosts a large community of Kuki-Zos from the Chin state.

According to prison officials in Assam and Manipur, 27 Myanmar nationals, including a newborn, are detained at the foreigners’ detention centre in Guwahati – and 209 Myanmar nationals, including five newborns, are detained in two jails in Imphal.

All the detainees are from regions of Myanmar that have become conflict zones since the 2021 coup in the country – such as Chin state, Sagaing and Magway regions.

Some Myanmar refugee detainees were arrested while traveling to New Delhi to seek protection from the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, while others were apprehended during operations targeting refugees in Manipur and Assam.

Prison, despite bail

On July 7, advocate David J Vaiphei wrote to the National Human Rights Commission, flagging the uncertain fate of one such group of undocumented migrants in a jail in Imphal, Manipur.

The jail authorities, Vaiphei said, had refused to release a group of refugees despite bail and release orders. Scroll has seen a copy of the letter.

The Moreh-based lawyer was among five advocates appointed by the Manipur state legal service authority to provide legal aid to refugees in Manipur.

His complaint mentioned the case of Keeshing, a 51-year-old from Tamu town in Myanmar, who was detained by the police in Moreh along with 30 other refugees in January last year. They were all held under Section 14 of the Foreigners’ Act.

In December, a court in Moreh, a town on Manipur’s border with Myanmar, had directed the superintendent of Manipur Central Jail, as well as the authorities of the foreigners’ detention centre inside the Sajiwa Central jail to release Keeshing and others in his group. Scroll has seen the release order.

The refugees have been kept in two jails in Imphal. The Manipur Central Jail houses women and children while the men are at the Sajiwa detention centre.

“We approached the court and were granted bail for 30-35 refugees,” Vaiphei told Scroll. “But despite the bail order, the jail authorities refused to release them, giving excuses like since they are Kukis from Myanmar, there is a security risk to letting them travel.”

Since May last year, Manipur has been in the grip of a fierce ethnic conflict, with the majority Meiteis holding an “alleged influx” of illegal Kuki immigrants and militants from Myanmar responsible for the violence.

The National Human Rights Commission has directed the Imphal authorities to take appropriate action within eight weeks.

Similarly, on November 18, the same court in Moreh had granted bail to 14 Myanmar nationals after the court noted that the authorities failed to file a chargesheet within 120 days of their arrest.

“More than 295 days have passed but no chargesheet has been filed,” the court order seen by Scroll said. “Hence, the indefeasible right to default bail has accrued in favor of the accused and he is entitled to default bail … under Article 21 of the Constitution of India,” the order said.

Eight months on, however, they remain in detention centres, Salai Dokhar, founder of India for Myanmar, a group working for the refugees from Myanmar, told Scroll.

A senior Manipur prison official told Scroll that though the refugees completed their sentences, they cannot be sent back until the Union home ministry issues an order of their release.

“We are not authorised to release or deport them,” the official said. “We have already informed the Centre and are waiting for directions,” he said.

He said in some cases, the ministry did ask them to release the “undocumented migrants” but the “Myanmar government is not ready to accept them”.

A country in turmoil

Since 2021, a military coup has plunged Myanmar in turmoil, sending waves of refugees fleeing violence across the Indian border – primarily to Mizoram and Manipur.

Some of those detained in India – like Zaw’s uncle – arrived before the coup, while several others are Myanmarese nationals trying to escape the ongoing armed conflict.

“The first group wants to return home and they are okay if India hands them over to the military regime,” said Dokhar. “But those who came after 2021, around 70-odd people, want their immediate release inside India.”

Dokhar added that they want to be released in Mizoram or along the Indo-Myanmar border so that they can return to Myanmar through “safe means on their own”, while evading the Myanmar army.

If the government does not release them, the families of the detainees said they should at least be moved out of Imphal.

Vaiphei said that because of the security situation in the state, many of the refugees want to be shifted to Mizoram.

Mizoram has provided shelter to about 50,000 Kuki-Chin refugees from Myanmar and Bangladesh who fled the atrocities in their home countries. Unlike Manipur, Mizoram did not put the refugees in the detention centre, but kept them in relief camps as they share ethnic ties with Mizos and Kukis, who are all part of an umbrella group of Kuki-Chin-Zo tribes.

“Imphal is not safe for the Myanmar refugees as they face discrimination because of their close ties to Kukis,” said an activist from Manipur, who has been providing humanitarian aid to Myanmar refugees. “They should be allowed to move to Churachandpur or Mizoram,” the activist said.

The activist alleged that the Myanmar refugees face terrible living conditions, lack of access to clean water and hostility from Meitei inmates of the prisons in which the detention centres are housed.

A Meitei advocate added: “The chief minister is taking harsh steps against foreigners and illegal immigrants with a political motive. Even the radical groups in Imphal are so volatile that it’s not safe for them to move around in the street now.”

Hunger strike

In May, despite requests from human rights groups, 38 Myanmar refugees were deported from Manipur and a similar number sent back on June 11. “The state government is continuing the identification of illegal immigrants and remains steadfast in its resolve to deport them. Let’s keep our borders and country secure," Manipur CM N Biren Singh said.

The handover led to great anxiety among the detainees in India.

Five days after the second batch of migrants were sent back, a number of Myanmar refugees launched a hunger strike inside the foreigners’ detention centre inside the Sajiwa jail, demanding an end to the deportation of Myanmar refugees, their immediate release within India and allowing them to return to Myanmar through “safe means”.

Altogether 66 refugees from Myanmar were on a hunger strike at Imphal’s Central Jail for over 17 days from June 16.

“Despite the hunger strike, nobody went to meet them,” Vaiphei’s complaint to the National Human Rights Commission read. “Instead, the police fired (rubber bullets) on them and injured two or three persons. Their injury status is unknown.”

A senior prison official, however, told Scroll that there was no firing and said Vaiphei’s claims were untrue.

In December, a similar hunger strike in Manipur central jail led to violence by the Manipur police on the detainees, Dokhar too alleged.

‘Asylum seekers, not illegal migrants’

The legal status of the Myanmarese refugees, who do not want to return, is ambiguous.

“The Manipur High Court has protected them before, saying that they are not illegal migrants but asylum seekers,” the Meitei advocate, who was also empanelled to provide legal aid, told Scroll.

He was referring to the high court order in May 2021 in Nandita Haksar vs State of Manipur, which held that the principle of non-refoulement was a part of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution.

Under international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be forced to return to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.

As a result, the court held that seven Myanmarese refugees could not be sent back to their country, where their lives could be in danger.

“The Manipur government is blind to the judicial interpretation in that case,” said the Meitei advocate.

But the Centre challenged this judgment in the Supreme Court, which stayed the order in 2022. “They challenged it and put it in a limbo. So we are not clear about what exactly is the legal status now,” the Meitei advocate said.

Instead of forcing Myanmarese refugees to return, the Manipur government could find another way out, the advocate said. “They should be dropped in Mizoram rather than in Myanmar, they might be safer that way. There is no hostility against them in that state. So from a human rights and humanitarian point of view, that seems to be the safest way out.”