Handcuffed and grieving: Rohingya in India face arbitrary  detentions

Nomina Khatoon’s heartrending cries pierced the night air as the Rohingya woman walked behind the janaza – funeral procession – of her five-month-old boy.

She was in handcuffs, a team of policemen half-dragging her through the streets of Jammu, a city in North India about 600 km from the capital New Delhi.

Like Khatoon, in her thirties, her baby was also under detention at a jail, designated as a “holding centre” for an estimated 270 Rohingya who had sought refuge in India after being forced to flee persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.

Khatoon delivered the baby in the camp after her detention on March 5, 2021, along with other refugees.

Forced to live in inhumane conditions and allegedly facing a severe food shortage and other essentials, the refugees tried to break out of the camp on January 18.

Security forces allegedly fired live bullets and tear gas shells to subdue the angry refugees, injuring several people, according to the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (ROHRIngya), an independent rights group.

Khatoon’s baby allegedly suffocated after inhaling tear gas fumes. A video tweeted by the group shows a chained Khatoon among a group of mourners.

“There are many more injured who are on their deathbeds. They are going to die,” ROHRIngya tweeted. “Authorities beat several almost to death. Five refugees were arrested, two women and three men. They also suffered custodial violence.”

Koushal Kumar, the official in charge of the ‘holding centre’, denies that any infant had died in the incident.

“The police had to intervene to rescue three staff members who were being held hostage by the detainees,” he tells TRT World. “Some policemen were also injured in stone-pelting by Rohingyas.”

According to the Indian government’s estimates, about 40,000 Rohingya live in different states in India, which shares a 1,643 km (1,021 miles) international border with Myanmar. However, Human Rights Watch says that only 20,000-odd are registered with the UNHCR. Most of the refugees from Myanmar entered India between 2012-2016.

The Hindu right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accused of arbitrarily arresting Muslim Rohingya refugees and detaining them without access to legal aid.

Recent developments appear to corroborate the allegations.

On July 24, the anti-terrorist unit of police in Uttar Pradesh state arrested 74 Rohingya during a crackdown across six districts. A top police official, Prashant Kumar, said the arrested included 16 women and five children.

It was not known where these Rohingyas were being detained.

Fuelling hatred

India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which lays down the rights of refugees and the responsibilities of countries to protect them.

Activists say that growing rhetoric against Rohingya from right-wing groups aligned with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of PM Modi is fuelling anti-Rohingya sentiments in many places.

And in Jammu, a Hindu-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir, right-wing groups have been at “war” with the refugees for a few years now.

In February 2017, a lawyer and member of a J&K BJP unit, ironically called the Human Rights Cell, approached the court seeking directions to the government to shift all “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar and Bangladesh to other places.

The anti-Rohingya sentiment was exacerbated in Jammu — home to an estimated 7,000 refugees — as various Hindu right-wing groups spearheaded a campaign to forcibly expel the Rohingyas.

This campaign was fueled by assertions from a local association of traders who stigmatised the Rohingyas as “criminals and drug traffickers disowned by their own country”.

They even threatened a campaign to “identify and kill” Rohingya if the government fails to deport them.

Jammu and India-administered Kashmir was one state till it was stripped of its special status in 2019 and placed directly underly the federal government in Delhi.

In 2017, the federal government asked all state governments to identify and repatriate all “illegal immigrants”, including Rohingya refugees. “Illegal migrants are more vulnerable to getting recruited by terrorist organisations,” the federal government claimed, an argument reiterated by BJP leaders for many years now.

In February 2021, a court directed the government to file a response within a month on measures it is taking or proposes to take to identify and take proper action regarding the “illegal immigrants”.

The following month, about 170 Rohingya – including women and children – were detained by J&K police and later sent to the detention camp in Jammu. Many others were picked up from other places and sent to the camp.

Murshid Alam, a Rohingya living in a separate settlement in Jammu, says there have been arbitrary arrests and detentions over the years.

“There are many cases where infants were left alone in the camps, and their parents were taken away by the police. Or children were taken, and parents were left alone. There are cases where one of the spouses is taken away, or old parents left without any earning member of the house,” Alam tells TRT World over the phone.

Living a nightmare

At a Rohingya settlement in Nuh in Haryana state bordering Delhi, Hasan is distraught as he speaks about his fellow Rohingyas detained in the Jammu camp.

“It has been more than two years now, and our people never returned…(since then) around 10-12 refugees have died in detention, and four are missing,” says Hasan, who gave only his first name.

According to a ROHRIngya report, more refugees were unlawfully jailed in 2021-2022.

Sophica, another Rohingya in Nuh who also identified herself by her first name, is on the verge of tears as she describes the inhumane treatment of her relatives detained in Jammu.

“Around 10-15 people, including women and children, were injured )on July 18). Videos have emerged showing two brutally beaten women. One person’s leg was badly injured by a tear gas shell. Even the pregnant, sick and elderly persons were beaten (by police),” she adds.

Shama Khatoon, whose daughter and son-in-law are detained in Jammu with their two infant children, says, “Lactating mothers are starving. And so are their babies. Nobody is allowed to meet those inside the jail. We cannot even give the women sanitary pads. They are using old soiled clothes and falling ill because of that.”

She says that inmates of the Jammu camp are starving as the food provided by the state is either inedible or inadequate. “Many are eating kikar leaves for sustenance,” she adds, referring to a locally-found fern-like edible plant.

The fear of being sent to a detention camp now haunts the Rohingya in Nuh, where an estimated 1,900 people live in unhealthy conditions. Without state support, they struggle for food and water.

Hasan, who is also a member of the local Rohingya Refugee Committee of Nuh, reveals that on July 13, the police in Nuh said that they would also be sent to the detention centre in Jammu.

“Since then, we haven’t been able to sleep in peace. We are living under continuous threat of meeting the same fate as our brethren.”

A teary-eyed Sophica adds, “Who knows, next time you come here, you wouldn’t meet us…We could be in the detention centre.”