Srinagar, Jun 01: Jama’at-e-Islami Jammu and Kashmir Thursday expressed its deep concern over the ‘inhumane treatment’ of Burma Muslim refugees at the hands of the local state administration and police in Jammu.
In a statement issued to KNS, JeI spokesman said, “These people have after facing ‘worst type of atrocities’ in Burma, entered different countries including India to save their lives and dignity but at the instance of some communalist fascist elements, these refugees are facing inhuman treatment in Jammu areas which is not only immoral but a blatant violation of all international laws and covenants relating to the refugees.”
The spokesman said that a glaring example of this ‘inhumane treatment’ is that of three refugees Mohammad Farooq, son of Noor-ul-Islam, Abu Alam, son of Zakir Ahmad and Mohammad Saleem, son of Ali Ahmad who crossed over to India in 2010 and on Baqr Eid came to Nagrota Jammu to meet their relatives stationed there and while going back to Rajasthan, they were apprehended by GRP police station Kathua and after subjecting them to inhumane torture sent to Munsiff Court Kathua which after conducting the trial for crossing over the border illegally, sentenced all the three to two years imprisonment which they completed in December 2012.
“They were then detained under Public Safety Act four times one after another for two years and in December 2014, when they came out of the Kathua jail, they were rearrested by police and kept in various police stations in a pitiable condition for about eight months and then once again detained under the draconian law of Public Safety Act and since then are languishing in Kathua jail. Despite the production of international refugee cards by their relatives, the authorities refused to release them which is a blatant violation of refugee rights,” the spokesman said.
JeI condemned this ‘inhumane and unethical behavior’ of state administration and police towards these hapless Burma refugees and asked them to release all such hapless refugees without any further delay.