The Supreme Court on Friday announced that the Rohingya Muslims issue is of great consequence and that it had a bigger role to play. It has decided to postpone the hearing on the issue to 21st November. It also said that petitioners can continue to approach the court in case of any contingency.
This news comes three months after Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh stated that the illegal immigrants pose a security threat as they may be recruited by terror groups.
In July, the ministry ordered the state governments to form a task force at the district level to find and deport the illegal immigrants.
In August, the government informed the Parliament that more than 14,000 Rohingya Muslims registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees were in India as per the available data. According to other reports, nearly 40,000 of Rohingya Muslims are residing in India illegally.
The Muslims are largely located in Delhi, Rajasthan, Haryana, Hyderabad, Uttar Pradesh and Jammu.
In September, the government stressed to the apex court that the illegal flood of Rohingyas was “seriously harming national security of the country.”
India also told the United Nations Human Rights Council that the present situation in Rakhine state in Myanmar should be handled with restraint and the primary focus should be on the welfare of the civilian population.
The Rohingya Muslims are in dire need and have been fleeing Myanmar to escape the ethnic cleansing by the Myanmar forces.
A reporter recently visited the refugee camps in Bangladesh and one woman told her gruesome story of how she lost her child. The Myanmar soldiers threw her infant baby into a fire and raped her before she could get on a boat and reach Bangladesh. She saw her village burnt down along with all her belongings and the rest of her family.
Satellites have captured the villages in Myanmar that have been burnt down and the site is devastating. The Myanmar government has denied claims of ethnic cleansing and say they were attacking the Rohingya insurgents. But according to the thousands of witnesses, they saw the Myanmar forces killing unarmed men.
In a public address, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh stated that the Muslims were illegal immigrants and if they are seeking refuge they need to register as refugees. This is highly insensitive as all of these people have lost their livelihood and most of them can not read or write leaving them helpless.
At present, even though Bangladesh is a poor country, it is doing all it can to help the distraught people. India is a much wealthier country compared to Bangladesh yet the government is hesitating to help people in need.
