Daunting task to track Rohingya refugees living on fake identities
Dinesh Manhotra
Tribune News Service
Jammu, April 21
Even as the campaign has been stepped up to screen Rohingya refugees in different slum areas, tracking these foreign refugees,living various localities of Samba and Jammu district on fake identities, is a difficult task before the authorities.
“A large numbers of Rohingya refugees have mingled with other slum-dwellers, so singling them out is a difficult task”, an officer, involved in the process, said on the condition of anonymity. The officer said it was known secret that many were living on fake identifies in different localities.
Illegally living in Jammu since long, many Rohingya immigrants have learnt the local language so it is a daunting task before the administration to segregate them from other migrant labourers.
As per available information with the authorities, 5,743 Rohingya refugees are illegally staying J&K. Out of the total Rohingya refugees living in Jammu province, 4,912 members are having United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) cards. There is no information about those living their without the UNHCR cards here.
“It is not difficult to conduct screening in the slum areas where only Rohingya refugees are living but the difficult task before the administration is to segregate them from the areas where they have mingled with other people”, a source said.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has written to states and Union Territories (UTs) on Friday, asking them to investigate the Rohingya-Tablighi links stating that Rohingya and their contacts may need to be screened for Covid-19.
On the very next day, the authorities started the screening process in some areas dominated by the refugees.
The Jammu police have already exposed Rohingya-Tablighi links by tracking down 10 Rohingya refugees hiding in the Karyani Talab area on the outskirt of Jammu and sent them to quarantine centre for observation as some of them were suffering from fever.
