‘Chained Like an Animal’: Rohingya Mother Brought to Baby’s Funeral in Handcuffs

Sources told The Quint that the baby suffocated after police fired tear gas within the detention center in Jammu

Namina Khatun, her husband Muhammad Saleem and close to 270 Rohingya refugees remain locked in the Hiranagar Jail in Jammu after they were detained in March 2021.

(Photo: Accessed by The Quint)

“Look at the cruelty done to us. Just look at the brutality. The mother has just lost her child, her world, where will she run? Why have the police chained her like an animal?,” a source close to Rohingya refugee Namina Khatun told The Quint, a day after the latter was forced to attend the last rites of her 5-month-old baby, handcuffed and escorted by the police.

Namina Khatun, her husband Muhammad Saleem and close to 270 Rohingya refugees remain locked in the Hiranagar Jail in Jammu after they were detained in March 2021.

They were part of 168 fellow Rohingyas who were rounded up in the Maulana Azad Stadium in Jammu for biometric verification on 6 March 2021, where several refugees were detained. A few days later, 72 displaced Rohingya from Jammu were detained by the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Delhi's Vikaspuri while they were camping outside the UNHCR office seeking protection.

Two years since their detainment, they remain housed in Jammu’s Hiranagar Jail, holding multiple hunger strike protests and demanding their release and deportation to Myanmar.

The atmosphere at the holding centre has been tense since May, but their demands allegedly made no headway, and on 17 July 2023, clashes broke out between authorities and Rohingya refugees, which the latter claim led to the death of 5-month-old Omar Habiba.

‘The Baby Suffocated After Inhaling Tear Gas’

“After two years of being detained illegally, being forcibly cut from their families, and receiving no answer to their demands, the refugees gathered and tried to leave the detention through force,” sources told The Quint.

Around 6 am on 17 July, clashes broke out between over 200 Rohingya refugees and police authorities, who resorted to “firing at the open crowd, lathi charge and throwing tear gas at the refugees."

“Family members of detained refugees approached UNHCR in a state of urgency, but UNHCR only issued an ID card, which the detainees already had. The local office manager was absent.”

A Rohingya refugee in Jammu, who has close ties with several detainees in the Hira Nahar center, told The Quint that the baby’s parents alleged that it died after suffering injuries in the police action. However, the baby's gender remains unclear.

“We were told that the baby suffocated to death after inhaling smoke from heavy tear gas shelling. Many other people were injured as well.”

According to statements made by Kathua district jail superintendent and Hari Nagar holding centre in-charge Koushal Kumar, the baby who passed away had been suffering from an unidentified ailment and died within the detention centre two days after the incident.

The authorities claim that their action was prompted when some inmates took three officials of the jail staff, including a special police official, hostage and attempted to break open the gate of the sub-jail at Hiranagar.

Kathua SSP Shiv Deep Singh stated that the child's death "was not related to the incident that occurred on Tuesday, 18 July 2023." The SSP claimed that the baby "had been unwell since birth and was under medication."

“The baby had been ill since birth. It was put on a ventilator but did not survive. The death is not related to Tuesday’s incident and did not die in our action,” Kumar claimed.

Sabber Kyaw Min, the co-founder and director of Rohingya Human Rights Initiative, told The Quint that the police’s claim of clashes originating from the detained Rohingyas is false and stated that commotion began after “police hurled tear gas shells at them and they ran towards the gate.

“The baby was born in jail and ended up dying in jail," he added. According to officials, the parents wanted to bury the body in Narwal, where their relatives live, and the Kathua District Magistrate gave permission for them to be taken there.

'Mother Has Just Lost Her Child, Her World, Where Will She Run?'

In 2012, Saleem arrived in Jammu with his wife Numina and their son Riazuddin, who was five years old then. Unfortunately, Saleem was arrested by the police later that year during a routine UNHCR card check and was held in the Ambphalla district jail.

By 2021, he was transferred to the holding centre in Hiranagar. In the same year, Numina was also sent to the holding centre after being apprehended during a medical check-up.

Their son Riazuddin, now 15 years old, was also sent to the same facility. The couple had two other children, Umar Habiba and one-year-old Umar Salina, who were living with them in the holding centre.

On a Wednesday night, 19 July 2023, they were brought to the Rohingya settlement in Narwal.

However, upon exiting the vehicle, witnesses, including family members, were shocked to see that Saleem, Numina, and their teenage son Riazuddin were allegedly handcuffed. Reportedly, they remained handcuffed for over an hour as they mourned their deceased relative and buried the body.

As Numina sat chained next to her the baby's body, a fellow Rohingya refugee told The Quint:

"Look at the cruelty done to us. Just look at the brutality. The mother has just lost her child, her world, where will she run? Why have the police chained her like an animal?"

After the funeral, they were taken back to the Hiranagar holding centre.

Senior police and prison officials, however, claimed to have no information about the use of handcuffs during the incident and denied any involvement of their staff in this matter.