Hyderabad: Fifteen Rohingya families have reportedly left Hyderabad in the last one week to seek refuge in Bangladesh because their future in India is uncertain.
Rohingya families staying in refugee camps at Balapur for several years say that following the recent fight between the Union government and human right organisations over their stay in India, a sense of insecurity pervades the camps.
“At some point of time, we will have to go. Realising this, a few families have left in the last one week,” says Mohammed Idris, who works as a daily labourer.
Idris came to India through Bangladesh five years ago and has been staying in the Balapur camp. He has a United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) refugee card and yet feels insecure in this country.
Another refugee, Inayath ur Rahman, said that following the recent announcements from the government that Rohingyas would be deported, several NGOs and others came to the camps.
Rohingyas at mercy of border police
“All of them helped us with rations, clothes and blankets. But no one came forward to assure us that we will be allowed to stay here. I think it is because we are not voters,” a refugee, Inayath ur Rahman said.
Most of those staying in the camps here have lost everything in Myanmar, which has been systematically decimating Rohingyas over several years.
They escaped from their country in the hope that they would not have to face the same persecution elsewhere, but the Indian government has taken a belligerent stand against them.
Bangladesh is the only country that has taken them in and is trying heroically to cope with the thousands flooding in every day.
“Those who have left the camps here will be going to Bangladesh if at all the police at the border allow them to cross over now,” said another Rohingya refugee.
Around 4,000 Rohingyas are living in camps in Balapur, Hafeezbabanagar C block, Kishanbagh and M M Pahadi in the Old City.
Mazher Hussain, chief executive director of the Confederation of Voluntary Organisations, says there is a sense of insecurity among Rohingyas in the city.
