More than 600 ‘intruders’ were apprehended this year by the Border Security Force (BSF) along the Bangladesh border while they were trying to enter India illegally, but there was no input available specific to the Rohingya, a senior government official said.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh said in Kerala on September 27 that there were reports that “Rohingya who are coming from Myanmar are trying to enter the southern States”.
He also informed that the Home Ministry had issued advisories to all States to enumerate, observe and collect biometric data of Rohingya living in India.
On September 27, a day before Mr. Singh’s visit to Kerala, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) also sent letters to railway divisional security commissioners in Kerala and Tamil Nadu that “Rohingya were travelling in large groups with their families by train.”
The letter said that they were “travelling from every corner of northeast States and ultimately heading towards Kerala, especially in 14 south-bound trains.”
As per the Home Ministry’s estimate, there are around 40,000 Rohingya in India, of which around 5,700 are in Jammu. Of these, only 16,000 are said to be registered with the United Nations. They came in 2012-13 when thousands of Rohingya were displaced following waves of violence in the Rakhine State of Myanmar. The attacks revived last year when lakhs took shelter in Cox’s Bazaar area of Bangladesh.
Last year, the BSF apprehended 87 Rohingya along the Bangladesh border and 76 were “sent back to Bangladesh.”
A senior BSF official said till September 30, as many as 638 ‘intruders’ were caught trying to enter India illegally and handed over to the local police. In 2016, as many as 1,587 such persons were caught and in the 2017, the number fell to 871.
“We have instructions to push back any person trying to enter India through illegal means. There has been no specific input about Rohingya though. For us, any person without documents is culpable to be punished under Foreigners Act,” said a senior BSF official.
Former BSF DG K.K. Sharma, before demitting office last week had said that the problem of Rohingya influx had been “contained.”