Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 11: Expressing disconcert over the steep rise in floating population of Bangladeshi and Rohingya immigrants in Jammu posing serious threat to the security of the region, J&K National Panther Party activists spearheaded by party chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh along with other leaders staged a protest demonstration at Exhibition Ground here today against the unlawful settlement of these foreign nationals in the outskirts of the city.
While addressing the media during protest demonstration Harsh Dev revealed that post 2012 Rakhine State conflict in Mayanmar (Burma), thousands of Rohingya immigrants who were forced to leave their native land entered India through Indo-Bangladesh border and reportedly there were several thousands of Burmese families who had unlawfully settled in the outskirts of Jammu city during last three years or so. He said that apart from them several thousand immigrants from Bangladesh have also inhabited the city illegally who had been living in makeshift slum colonies at some of the congested areas including Rajiv Nagar, Qasim Nagar, Bhathindi, Borhi, Channi Himmat and areas adjoining the Bahu Fort besides others.
Smelling a deep rooted conspiracy being hatched to settle these immigrants in Jammu region, Singh divulged that it had been reported that these people had clandestinely managed PRCs, Identity Cards, Ration Cards and Water and Electricity connections for their daily needs due to patronage of some politicians and officials in the administration. He said that J&K being a militancy infested state had seen mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in the early nineties but the unlawful settlement of foreign nationals in clusters and denying PRCs to the WPRs was undoubtedly intriguing. He said that it was ironical that Rohingyas from Mayanmar and Bangladeshis had managed to settle in the Jammu in recent years but the West Pak refugees being the citizens of India who had entered Jammu to survive the holocaust of partition were struggling for the State subject rights since 1947.
Likewise, several thousand of Tibetan Muslim refugees were settled in Idgah, Badamwari and Gulshan Mohalla in Kashmir valley and Ladakh by the State Government who were enjoying the voting rights in contrary to the deprived WPRs.
Fearing the obnoxious inhabitation of Rohingyas in Jammu as a potential security threat to the region, Harsh Dev said that these immigrants had been reportedly involved in several criminal antecedents and were prone to ‘Jehadi radicalization’ in the militancy hit state being close to hostile Pakistan.
He disclosed that during an encounter in Tral in October 2015, the security forces had killed two foreign militants, one of whom was identified as a Rohingya native of Myanmar named ‘Chota Burmi’. He said that with the soaring population of Rohingyas settling down in Jammu city and following the killing of the dreaded terrorist there were increased fear of the Rohingya immigrants falling prey to the ISI designs.
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