Around 40,000 Rohingya live in slums and detention camps across India, including Jammu, Hyderabad, Nuh, and Delhi, the majority of whom are undocumented.[1][6][7][8][9] According to Indian law, illegal immigrants are not refugees. Since India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention,[10][11] the United Nations principle of non-refoulement and impediment to expulsion does not apply in India. Illegal immigrants are denied impediment to expulsion if they do not fall within the host country's legal definition of a lawful refugee.[12] On 9 August 2012, during a Supreme Court hearing about a public interest litigation petition for deportation of illegal migrants, it was told that the policy of the government of India does not support any kind of illegal migration either into its territory or illegal immigration of its citizens and the government is committed to deporting illegal migrants, but only lawfully.[13] In August 2017, the Bharatiya Janata Party led Union Government asked state governments to initiate the process of deportation for all illegal immigrants including Rohingyas.[14] This was challenged before the Supreme Court of India by three Rohingya refugees, wherein the Government of India submitted an affidavit claiming that there were over 40,000 "illegal [Rohingya] immigrants", mostly spread across Assam, West Bengal and Jammu and Kashmir and that they were a threat to the security of state.[15][16]
Rohingyas add economic pressure on Indian populace; due to their perceived militant activities, they pose a security threat, especially in sensitive areas such as Jammu and West Bengal.[17][15] In 2017, the Central Government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court stating that "Some Rohingyas sympathizing with many militant group's ideologies may be active in Jammu, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Mewat and can be a potential threat to internal security."[15] In 2025, Supreme Court of India pulled up the government of Assam state over delay in deportation of illegal foreigners including Rohingyas and ordered the immediate action.[18]
Illegal status
Under the Indian law Rohingyas are illegal immigrants,[19] not refugees.[10] Illegal immigrants are subjected to The Foreigners Act (1946), which defines a foreigner as a person who is not a citizen of India.[20] Where the nationality of a person is not evident, the onus of proving whether a person is a foreigner or not lie upon the person himself.[20] Anyone who believes that a foreigner has entered India, or who is the owner or managers of the property where a foreigner resides illegally, must inform the nearest police station within 24 hours of the presence of such foreigner.[20] The Foreigners Act allows the government to detain a foreigner until he is deported back to his own country.[21]
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India issues identity cards to people who are registered as refugees by the UNHCR, intended to protect them from arbitrary arrests and deportations.[22] In India, the UNHCR identity cards do not offer protection from detention. The UNHCR ID cards only serve to provide access to some services. At best, they protect from punitive action.[23]
Rohingyas are seen as a national security threat to India, especially in sensitive areas like Jammu and West Bengal.[17] Rohingyas are Muslims of Bangladeshi origin,[24][25][26] not the precolonial native Myanmar Muslims called Kaman.[24][27][28][29]
The Indian government has the evidence linking Rohingyas in India with terrorist organisation that are national security threat to India. Indian government submitted an affidavit to the supreme court affirming, "[The] Rohingya presence in the country has serious national security ramifications. There is [a] serious possibility of eruption of violence against Buddhists who are Indian citizens and who stay on Indian soil by radicalized Rohingyas".[30]
In 2018, India's National Investigation Agency (NIA) started court prosecution against a Rohingya man Samiun Rahman for being in-charge of building and expanding the Al-Qaeda terrorist group in the Indian sub-continent. He fought for al-Qaeda in Syria, then travelled to Bangladesh and India to recruit people to establish "an al-Qaeda base in the Indian sub-continent". He told NIA that India, Bangladesh, United States and Israel are al-Qaeda’s prime targets for terrorism.[30]
Following a military crackdown of the Rohingyas' in Myanmar in 2017, approximately 5,000 Rohingyas sought refuge in Jammu. In 2021, authorities in Jammu detained more than 160 refugees, with the purpose of deporting them to Myanmar. By July 2023, 271 Rohingyas — including 74 women and 70 children — were reported to be detained at Hiranagar Jail in Kathua, Jammu, which is used as a "holding centre" for the refugees.[33] Families of these refugees have raised concerns about the perilous conditions in Myanmar, particularly following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état.[1]
After the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014, anti-Rohingya sentiment grew in India, with its leaders urging the removal of Rohingyas from the country.[22] The Rohingyas have protested against their detention in Jammu by going on hunger strikes and demonstrations. In July 2023, a clash occurred between the detainees — on a hunger strike since April — and the police, with the latter resolving to using tear gas to control what they called an unruly mob. A few days after the incident, a five-month old baby died after failing to receive treatment after inhaling the gas.[34]
Leaders of the BJP have initiated campaigns calling for the expulsion of all Rohingya.[35]
Allegations of abuse
The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights alleged that Indian authorities threw at least 40 Rohingya refugees, including 15 Christians, overboard from a naval vessel near Myanmar after being provided life jackets on 8 May 2025. The refugees' whereabouts remain unknown [36]
↑ Leider, Jacques (2018). "Rohingya: The History of a Muslim Identity in Myanmar". In Ludden, David (ed.). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.115. ISBN9780190277727.
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