Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 16: During her recent press briefings in Jammu on the terror attack on the strategic Sunjuwan Army Camp, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman pointed to the Rohingya presence adjacent to this military camp -- located very much within Jammu city. She suggested that the possibility of terrorists getting local support could not be overruled. She didn't explain away everything but she did give a clear hint.
A day before, a war veteran Brigadier SS Saini had blamed "previous governments" for the attack on the Army camp, saying "Rohingya and Bangladeshi settlements were allowed near the base".
"While a military station should not have any construction within a 100-meter radius from its compound wall, in Sunjuwan, people have constructed their houses right next to our fence," the Brigadier had also said.
Both the Defence Minister and the Brigadier did make a valid point by pointing to the Rohingya presence near the vital army installation.
The same day, a report said that terrorists, who attacked the army camp, had planned the whole attack from a house where some Rohingyas lived.
According to a report, 100s of Rohingyas have been living near security establishments. A report in this regard has said that as many as 734 Rohingyas have been settled near Police Lines in Channi Himmat, a posh locality, 206 have been settled near the Army Camp Sunjuwan and 40 Rohingyas have been settled near 16 Corps Headquarters of Indian Army at Nagrota.
It is strange that instead of ensuring their repatriation to Myanmar, some elements have been supporting their settlement in Jammu and questioning the stand of the Union Government on the issue.
"The arguments put forth by the Centre in the course of the January 31 hearing in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 793/2017 in Mohammad Saleemullah & Anr V. Union of India & Ors, are not new: The Centre said that refugees are eating into the limited resources of the country, illegal migrants are more vulnerable for getting recruited by terrorist organizations, and that all the Rohingya are terrorists. The August 8, 2017, circular, which articulated the government's position that illegal immigrants from Rakhine are to be identified and deported, is not only unconstitutional but also contradicts India's own stand," the sympathizers of the Rohingyas have been saying in and outside the Supreme Court.
Now that an agreement between Myanmar and Bangladesh on the Rohingya issue has been reached and Bangladesh has started repatriating them to Myanmar in batches, it's high time that New Delhi deported them so that the concerns of the security agencies and the general population were addressed. |
