Rohingya will be deported: Rajnath

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 21

The Centre today yet again sent out a clear signal that it will not buy the human rights angle with regard to the Rohingya who have settled in India illegally, and is determined to deport them.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said India was not a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees and hence would be in no breach of any international protocol in deporting them through legal means.

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Addressing a seminar on “Good Governance, Development and Human Rights”, organised by the National Human Rights Commission, Singh said those concerned with human rights of others should also be concerned with the rights of Indians.

Referring to the clamour against the deportation, he said: “Do not commit the mistake of categorising the Rohingya as refugees.” They also do not have political asylum in India. “There is a certain procedure to be completed to attain the status of a refugee. The government has not received any application from any quarters to this effect,” Singh added.

The issue is also related to the country’s security on which this government cannot compromise. The government has submitted its affidavit to the court. In this context, he said, Bangladesh was facing trouble on account of influx of the Rohingya. He said the government had extended help to Bangladesh to tide over the crisis on humanitarian grounds. Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit, Myanmar has made its intention of taking back the Rohingya clear. He wondered why even then people were building a case against their deportation.

Batting for human rights as a noble concept, he said it should not be misused for vested interest.

Drawing a distinction between the concept of human rights understood in the West and in India, he said while in the country it was conceived out of a sense of duty, in the West it was conceived in the backdrop of bloodshed, violence and struggle.

‘Illegal immigrants, not refugees’

"The Rohingya are not refugees... No Rohingya has got asylum in India, nor has anyone applied for it. They are illegal immigrants." — Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister

NHRC: taken up on humanitarian grounds  

New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Thursday said it had taken up the issue of the Rohingya on humanitarian grounds, but refused to comment on the government’s assertion that the “illegal immigrants” would be deported. “We are taking up the case of Rohingya on humanitarian grounds,” NHRC chairman retired Justice HL Dattu said. PTI