Smoking Out The Rohingya?

The state BJP now wants the Rohingya kicked out—and it has support from the party and the central government

- Asit Jolly

Taking a cue from Union home minister Rajnath Singh, who on December 8 called for a ‘J&K-like border protection grid’ in the five eastern frontier states to prevent a spillover of Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh into India, Jammu and Kashmir’s deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh now says the Rohingya Muslims are a threat to national security and have to go.

Seldom known to speak without Delhi’s concurrence, Singh, who heads a group of four J&K ministers constituted to recommend ways for the state to deal with the problem of illegal migrants, said the Rohingya would have to leave the state. He believes the refugees from Myanmar, who began arriving and settling in and around Jammu a few years ago, are a danger, being “prone to the designs of the terrorist groups” active in J&K.