India on Tuesday rejected a United Nations report that claimed Rohingya refugees and other displaced persons from Myanmar were targeted by the Indian authorities after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, saying it had no “factual bearing”.
Delivering India’s statement on Myanmar’s human rights situation at the UN General Assembly in New York, Lok Sabha MP Dilip Saikia objected to the “blinkered” remarks made against New Delhi in the report.
He said that the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar took a “communal and prejudiced” approach by linking the Pahalgam attack to the treatment of refugees.
The terror attack at Baisaran near the town of Pahalgam on April 22 left 26 persons dead and 17 injured. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those killed were Hindu.
In his report, United Nations Special Rapporteur Thomas Andrews alleged that after the attack, refugees from Myanmar living in India were “summoned, detained, interrogated and threatened with deportation” by Indian authorities, despite no evidence linking them to the incident.
The report also alleged that Indian authorities deported several Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh in May and transferred others to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Rejecting these observations, Saikia urged the UN expert not to rely on “unverified and skewed media reports whose sole purpose appears to be maligning” India.
He added that the deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in Myanmar remained a “matter of deep concern”, particularly given the challenges it posed to regional stability and cross-border issues such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling and human trafficking.
In May, officials of the National Unity Government of Myanmar confirmed to Scroll that 40 Rohingya refugees were in the custody of its armed wing, the People’s Defence Force, after being deported from India by being forced into the sea.
Since the Pahalgam terror attack, the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.
Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, individuals who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.
Earlier this year, Scroll travelled to rural West Bengal to meet the families forced to prove they are Indians. Read the series here.
Also read: How India allegedly deported 40 Rohingya refugees by forcing them into Andaman Sea
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