3 Rohingya refugees caught in Bishalgarh, Tripura
By Firstdespatch Desk Oct 27, 2022
Agartala, Oct 27 (FD) 3 Rohingya refugees were held Lembutali market in Bishalgarh subdivision of sipahijala district, about 20 km from here, police said on Thursday.
The refugees, who had entered into Indian territory from neighbouring Bangladesh were suspiciously moving in the area, which prompted locals to hold them and later handed over to police.
The three Rohingya refugees in preliminary interrogation said that they entered India in search of job, police said.
Among the refugees two are young men, identified as Nur Salam and Saleemullah and the other is an woman, who was identified as Musana Begum .
The admitted to police that they are Rohingya refugees from Mandu district of Myanmar and belonged to the refugee camp in Bangladesh. They have also produced identity card from Bangladesh refugee camps.
The refugees said that they fled to Jammu and Kashmir and then came to Tripura in search of work. However, they failed to find any work here. Therefore, they came to this area as they were planning to move back to Bangladesh. Madhupur comes right after Lembutali market where illegal crossing of India-Bangladesh borders by foreign citizens have been reported frequently.
Former UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres defines rohingya refugees as "one of, if not the, most discriminated people in the world". The Rohingya, who numbered around one million in Myanmar at the start of 2017, are one of the many ethnic minorities in Myanmar and represent the largest percentage of Muslims in Myanmar, with the majority living in Rakhine state.
The Rohingya crisis in Myanmar started in 1982 when the Burmese government enacted the 1982 Citizenship Law. The document identifies 135 ethnic groups, which the government asserts had settled in Burma prior to 1823, and does not include the Rohingya as one of them. 1823 was the year of the first Anglo-Burman war when the British took control over Burma. According to the citizenship law, any community that immigrated after British colonization is not part of the indigenous Burmese people. However, there is substantial evidence to prove that Rohingya had been living in the area for generations prior to the British conquest.
2015 saw massive migration of these people to Bangladesh, Malaysia and Thailand to escape ethnic persecution by the Myanmar military. Rohingyas arriving in Bangladesh said they fled after troops, backed by local Buddhist mobs, responded by burning their villages and attacking and killing civilians.
At least 6,700 Rohingya, including at least 730 children under the age of five, were killed in the month after the violence broke out, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
Amnesty International reports claimed that Myanmar military also raped and abused Rohingya women and girls.
The India-Bangladesh border in Madhupur is apparently known for safe illegal crossing of borders, avoiding obstruction from Police or Border Security Force (BSF) authority. Coincidentally the foreigners caught for illegal border crossing were by the common locals in the area. This raises important questions about the safety and security in the borders, which should supposedly be maintained by the BSF. FD DM JK