The Indian media has seen the refugee issue only as a source of occasional human interest stories, describing the plight of refugees and their struggles for survival. It is only recently that refugees have featured in the headlines in India when they became a political issue in the violence in Manipur. Then came the horrific story of a group of Rohingyas taken by the Indian authorities and thrown into the sea. This time the story made the front pages.
However, the arrests and detentions of the Rohingyas cannot be seen in isolation from the issue of refugee protection in India. It has to be seen in the context of national and international political developments – namely the rise of religious right political movement that has weaponised immigration and refugee issues for furthering their political agenda.
It is in this context we must see the latest arrests of the African refugees living in Malviya Nagar in Delhi. For the past week or more the police, often in plain clothes, have been picking up refugees from Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and, after taking their biometrics, sending them to infamous detention facility in Haryana called Lampur Seva Sadan.
The police have been picking up the men, leaving the women and children on their own, refugees say. Most of the women do not work, which leaves them very vulnerable.
Yousif Haroun, a refugee from Sudan who has an identity card from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, has sent several desperate emails to the UNHCR informing them of the recent arrests from Malviya Nagar. But they have offered no other advice than to tell him to lie low and change his mobile number.
Haroun has taken the advice and has been staying in different hospitals. But the police has barged into his home, where his wife with two very small children are living. These raids have left them traumatised. One child is barely two years old and the other is a baby of six months.
A young Yemeni refugee man said he was taken and beaten by the police. He asked them why he was beaten, they said he had come illegally to India. The police do not respect the identity cards issued by the UNHCR. The Yemeni man told the police that they should think of the Indians who are living in Africa because if news of these arrests goes to Africa there would be a reaction against Indians there.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.
