Coming down heavily upon the Modi administration over its decision of deporting Rohingya refugees, Human Rights activist Ravi Nair said the government is taking the Rohingya refugees in communal perspective. Since the Rohingya refugees belong to the Muslim community, the government took the decision of deporting them. The government is also doing this in order to please the Myanmar government so that India can exert influence on Myanmar. Nair was addressing a public meet on ‘Rohingya Muslims and the Silence of Global Community’ at JIH headquarters in New Delhi on 9 September.
Nair, who is Director of South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre, further said if we could give shelter to 1,000,000 Bangladeshi refugees during the Indira Gandhi regime, why can we not bear 40,000 Rohingya refugees? The government is calling them terrorist. How can these hapless people, who stand persecuted and have nothing to live their life, be terrorist?
He further said they have filed a petition in the Supreme Court against the deporting decision of the government. He alleged that the government is playing all the dirty game to mount pressure on the Supreme Court. The hearing is on 11 September. Sangh group is scheduled to hold a protest the same day. But the law and the previous judgement of the Supreme Court is supporting their cause. He hoped that they would win the case. But there may be chance of long-standing hearing but they will try that the Supreme Court put stay on the deportation so that the harassment of the refugees stops.
He said the Myanmar government is saying that the Rohingya community is Bengali. They should go to Bangladesh. It’s totally a lie. They have been living in Myanmar since the 9th century. Their language is different from Bengali. Some Bengali people were taken by the British government there for farming purpose. But they were very few. Calling the entire Rohingya community Bengali and sending them to Bangladesh is grave injustice to them.
In the concluding remark, Engineer Mohammed Salim, Secretary General Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, expressed grave concern over this communal decision of the government. He said he was expecting from the Prime Minister Modi that he would put pressure on the Myanmar government to stop ethnic cleansing but unfortunately he supported the Myanmar government over it. He also criticised Nobel Peace Prize winner and Myanmar state councillor Aung San Suu Kyi for failing to speak up against the ethnic cleansing.