NEW DELHI, June 21: The Rights and Risks Analysis Group (RRAG) has stressed on the need for a refugee law in India.
Stating that a refugee law in India will safeguard the rights of the refugees, director of the RRAG, Suhas Chakma said, “The failure of the Government of India to enact a refugee law despite the country being born out of Partition which saw the largest movement of refugees in the 20th century is deplorable. Since its Independence, India had witnessed consistent influx of refugees, especially from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uganda, Sri Lanka etc but it failed to ensure the principles of equality and non-discrimination on the treatment of refugees.”
The appeal for a refugee law in India comes on World Refugee Day, a day designated by the United Nations to honour refugees around the globe.
While referring to the contentious Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, he said over 4,00,000 people seek refuge in India at present.
“The CAA is not only discriminatory towards other religious groups and political refugees, it even fails to protect those it intends to i.e. Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian minorities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan. It is as if discrimination against the religious minorities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Pakistan had ended on 31st December 2014. That India has granted e-visas to over 100 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus on priority on 19 June 2022 following the terror attack on the Gurdwara in Kabul exposes the futility of the CAA. These Afghan Sikhs and Hindus on their arrival in India will suffer because of non-grant of refugee status as well as citizenship and might have to return back just like some of the Hindu refugees from Pakistan,” said the RRAG director.
