Security situation in NE to be discussed

Over the next few days, the Centre will take stock of the security situation in North East and the issue of settlement of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims. 

The meeting of Chief Ministers of North Eastern States in Guwahati on July 11 will be chaired by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.  The high-level meeting on the issues related to the settling of Rohingya Muslims has been convened in Delhi on July 20.

Concerned over more than one lakh Rohingya Muslims settling in India, the Centre has convened a meeting of top officials of seven States, including Uttar Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, on July 20 to discuss monitoring their activities given their vulnerability to radicalisation.The meeting, to be attended by Principal Secretaries (Home) of the States, will also take note of “alarming” development of Rohingya Muslims marrying Indian girls, especially in Jammu and Kashmir, said MHA officials.

According to an initial estimate, there are around 1.3 lakh Rohingyas, mostly settled in Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh (mainly Hyderabad), Kerala, Assam, Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi.“Rohingya Muslims are ‘persecuted’ in their homeland in Myanmar. Hence, there is a fear that the members of the community could be vulnerable to radicalisation. We have to be cautious before things go out of hand,” the official said.

Rohingya Muslims have been infiltrating into India through the porous Indo-Bangladesh border and most of them have secured identity cards given to refugees and asylum seekers by UN Refugee agency UNHCR, making it difficult for authorities to deport them immediately even if caught.Meanwhile, the meeting of North Eastern States Chief Ministers in Guwahati on July 11, will take stock of the security situation in the region and how to deal with emerging threats like increasing violence perpetrated by Northeast militants based in Myanmar, sources said.

This comes a month after Indian Army conducted a surgical strike on the camps of NSCN-K and other militant groups inside the territory of the neighbouring country after insurgents killed 18 Army soldiers in an ambush in Manipur. Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region Jitendra  Singh, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju will also participate in the meeting.