Stateless Rohingyas pin hope on PM Manmohan’s visit

Gautam Debroy, New Delhi  When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be reaching Naypyidaw on Sunday for a three-day official visit, majority of Rohingya refugees living in India, with a good number of their presence in Northeastern states, will be hoping for an early return to their home at Arakan region of Myanmar.
The Rohingyas, witnessed a massive exodus from Myanmar after the military coup in 1962 and later in 1991-92, took shelter in various parts of the country. Their presence in to the Northeastern states had h owever come to the light after the arrest of several refugees from Tripura and Assam.


“At a time when we are already finding it difficult to rein in the illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, presence of the Rohingyas is really a matter of grave concern for us,” said AGP MP Kumar Dipak Das.
He is hoping that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will certainly raise this issue with his Myanmarese counterpart.
“It is the duty of the Centre to protect the indigenous people from the threat of large scale influx from across the border,” Das added. According to the reports, the Rohingyas are entering into the Northeastern states through Tripura, Mizoram and Manipur.
“We have been getting ground reports about the presence and the entry of the Rohingyas into the Northeast,” said a senior h ome ministry official to this correspondent.
“We are living here as stateless people. We neither have refugee status nor any proof of our identity…so we want to go back to our home state,” said Hafizur Rahman, a Rohingya refugee living at Okhla in South Delhi.
Fully aware of Myanmar’s fledgling democracy, Rahman said that they are optimistic with the return of Aung San Suu Kyi into the hurly burly affairs of Myanmar’s polity. He also revealed that many Rohingyas are now presently living in Assam’s Barak Valley and Tripura.
According to the latest Human Rights Watch report gross violation of rights against them are continuing unabated. But still they have not given up their fight for their identity.