India Reportedly Uses Chilli Spray to Stop Influx of Rohingyas

Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Image used for representation.

(Photo: Bernat Armangue/AP)

India has reportedly enhanced security along the eastern border, that the country shares with Bangladesh, to stop Rohingya muslims from entering the country.

The Border Security Force is using “chilli and stun grenades”, reported Reuters.

We don’t want to cause any serious injury or arrest them, but we won’t tolerate Rohingya on Indian soil. We’re using grenades containing chilli spray to stop hundreds of Rohingyas trying to enter India ... the situation is tense.

BSF Official to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-india/india-using-chilli-sprays-stun-grenades-to-dissuade-rohingya-influx-idUSKCN1BX1BG"><i>Reuters</i></a>

A deputy inspector general of the BSF, RPS Jaswal confirmed that the security forces patrolling West Bengal were “told to use both chill grenades and stun grenades to push back the Rohingya.”

About 40,000 Rohingyas have settled in India, and 16,000 of them have received refugee documentation, the United Nations estimated. Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had said on 5 September that the Rohingyas were illegal immigrants and stood to be deported.

Also Read: Refugee Crisis: Indian Realpolitik or Hostility to Rohingyas?

Since 25 August, around 4,00,000 Rohingyas have fled from Myanmar, after coordinated attack by the Rohingya insurgents started a counter strike from the Myanmar security forces.

The United Nations has reportedly called the assault a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing".

The Ministry of Home Affairs had clarified that it has not filed any affidavit on deportation of Rohingya refugees in the Supreme Court yet.

In the draft affidavit, the Centre said there were “contemporaneous inputs” received by it that indicated that some of the unauthorised Rohingya immigrants had links with Pakistan and Bangladesh-based terror organisations, said media reports.

(With inputs from Reuters)

Also Read: Vulnerable, Lonely: Rohingya Children Struggle to Survive in Camps