By Surinder Kaur, Christianity Today
For the past 13 years, the small Christian Rohingya community in Delhi—which numbers 150—has rented rooms to worship in three congregations each Sunday. The two pastors had been going through the Sermon on the Mount for the past six months.
They had reached Matthew 7 when the government began rounding up members of the community.
It began May 6, when police called 15 Christian and 23 Muslim Rohingya into police stations, claiming they needed to be fingerprinted due to a “failure in their biometric,” according to Sadeq Shalom, a church member whose brother was deported. The Rohingya complied, believing it was another routine check. Although the refugees have UN-recognized refugee status, India is not a signatory of the UN refugee law and treats them as illegal migrants.
Once the refugees reached the station, authorities moved them from one government office to another before transporting them by airplane and boat into international waters. Then, they ordered the refugees to jump into the ocean with life vests on.
David Nazir, another member of the church, said his elderly parents were also among those deported. On May 9, he received a phone call from them calling from inside Myanmar. They recalled their harrowing journey and the way Indian authorities had led them to believe they would be deported to Indonesia. Before throwing them into the ocean, the naval officers said they would soon be picked up, Nazir said, “but no one came.”
“My parents don’t know how to swim,” he said. “Those who could swim helped drag the others toward shore, but God only knew where they were going.”
Once they reached the shore, they realized they were back in Myanmar, the home they had escaped years ago.
The Christian Rohingya have been caught up in the Indian government’s crackdown on immigrants living illegally in the country. In February, Amit Shah, the minister for Home Affairs, began advocating for strict action against those who help illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants, claiming they are a threat to “national security.” Then, in early May, the government issued “revised instructions” to identify, detain, and deport illegal immigrants.
The policy has devastated Delhi’s close-knit Christian Rohingya community, as businesses are afraid to employ them and the refugees are struggling to support their families. They also fear the government will round them up and deport them back to Myanmar.
This story was originally published in christianitytoday.com. Read the full story here.