The Rohingya refugees are no longer in the news, but their persecution and troubles have not eased a bit. Twelve Rohingya refugees including five children tried to enter India from Bangladesh were stopped but have refused to leave the Zero Line along the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura for the past three days, according to the Indian Border Security Force (BSF).
“The 12 refugees tried to enter India from Bangladesh through the Boxanagar border in western Tripura on Thursday. But our troopers stopped them from infiltrating into India,” a BSF official said.
“Later that day, a commandant level meeting was held between the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) and the Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) in which the latter agreed to take back the refugees, but the group has refused to leave the Zero Line,” the official said.
The Indian Border Security Force official said that the Rohingya refugees are carrying identity cards issued by the Bangladeshi authorities. “They are the inmates of Rohingya refugee camp in Chittagong,” he said. Earlier this week too, Tripura police arrested two Rohingya men from Rajnagar area near the India-Bangladesh international border.
According to the BSF and the police, over 250 Rohingya Muslims have been detained during the past one year in Tripura, southern Assam and Mizoram after they escaped the Rohingya refugee camps in Chittagong in southeast Bangladesh.
Following a wave of brutality in Myanmar’s Rakhine province, around 750,000 Rohingya Muslims took refuge in Cox’s Bazar in southeastern Bangladesh. Refugees from these camps have often tried to enter the northeastern states of India.
