Incarcerated Rohingya refugees reportedly clashed with police inside a jail-turned-holding centre in Jammu on Tuesday, demanding their freedom or repatriation to Myanmar.
“Several refugees and policemen have been injured. The CRPF was brought in to restore order,” a police officer said.
According to the police officer, the trouble started on Tuesday morning after the detainees allegedly tried to break open the gate of Hira Nagar sub-jail, which is the lone holding centre for the refugees in Jammu and Kashmir, but were stopped by the police.
“An FIR has been registered and investigations are on,” he said.
Thousands of Rohingya refugees have been living in Jammu for the past two years to avoid persecution by authorities in their homeland in Myanmar. Many people in Jammu have been calling for their ouster.
The Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, a group that fights for the refugees’ rights, claimed the police used tear gas on the detainees who were on a hunger strike. They did not suggest there was any clash.
The rights group also shared a series of purported videos of detainees, including women and children, running and crying in panic or attending to the injured. One such video showed something exploding, which the group claimed was a tear gas shell aimed at protesters caught in a narrow corridor.
“Jammu and Kashmir police unlawfully detained 269 refugees without charges in April 2021. Rounded up in the Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu for biometric verification, the refugees were randomly detained. Two years have passed since with nojustice or resolution,” the group said in a WhatsApp statement.
They claimed three detainees had died in the past two years while two were allegedly deported.
Last year, US-based rights group Human Rights Watch claimed the Indian government forcibly deported an ethnic Rohingya woman, Hasina Begum, from Hiranagar on March 22.
A Rohingya, who lives in Jammu, said the refugees at the holding centre have been literally jailed and their protests seldom make news. “They are living pathetic lives but their protests are not just curbed but seldom shown. They have not eaten anything for days. All they want is they should be released or repatriated,” he said.
