JAMMU: Describing the influx of Rohingyas and Bangladeshis in Jammu as a potential threat to the cultural, historical and religious identity of Jammu, Harsh Dev Singh, Chairman JKNPP and former Minister, lambasted the incumbent government for its despicable apathy in addressing the grave issue.
He regretted that BJP leadership was merely issuing press statements for public consumption and playing to the galleries deliriously oblivious of the fact that it was no longer in opposition but was running the government both in New Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir.
He expressed his dismay that various Ministers of J and K including Dr. Jitender Singh were purely issuing the statements opposing the settlement of these illegal immigrants without initiating any tangible measures for their deportation. He was addressing the press conference in Jammu on Wednesday.
While addressing the media, Harsh revealed that lakhs of Rohingyas who were persecuted and forced to leave the native land by the Myanmar (Burma) Army because of their involvement in the subversive activities entered India through Indo-Bangladesh border. He said that the State Government had admitted on the floor of the house that there were several thousands of Burmese families who had unlawfully settled in the outskirts of Jammu city and Samba besides several thousand immigrants from Bangladesh were also believed to have inhabited the city illegally who had been living in fabricated shanties and slums at some of the congested colonies including Rajiv Nagar, Kassim Nagar, Narwal, Bhatindi, Borhi, Channi Himmat, Nagrota and areas adjoining the Bahu Fort besides others. Similarly, thousands of Tibetan Muslim refugees who were forced to flee China had been settled by the State government in the colonies located at Idgah, Badamwari and Gulshan Mohalla in Kashmir and Ladakh, he added. Smelling a deep rooted conspiracy hatched by certain unscrupulous forces to settle the immigrants in the colonies encircling the Jammu city, Singh maintained that these immigrants had been settled here by several NGOs and Madrassas who had illegally managed to procure PRCs, identity cards, ration cards, water and electricity connections for their daily needs by conniving with some politicians and officials in the administration.
Disconcerted by the series of draconian events in the militancy infested State, Singh said that mass exodus of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley, communal hegemony of secessionist forces in Kashmir, glorification of militants and now State Government’s silence over the unlawful settlement of foreign nationals in clusters and denying PRCs to the WPRs was undoubtedly intriguing and diabolical in nature.
Harsh regretted that while the Rohingyas from Mayanmar and Bangladeshis could manage to settle in the Jammu in recent years besides Tibetan refugees enjoying the voting rights in Kashmir, ironically the West Pak refugees being the citizens of India who crossed over to Jammu to survive the massacre of partition were struggling for the State subject rights since 1947.
Fearing the sinister inhabitation of Rohingyas in Jammu as a ‘ticking time bomb’, Harsh said that these immigrants reportedly involved in several criminal and subversive antecedents were prone to ‘Jehadi extremism’ in the militancy hit state being close to belligerent 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 Abdur Rehman al Arkani alias Chota Burmi a Rohingya native of Myanmar. He said that the soaring population of Rohingyas settling down in Jammu city had remained on the terror radar and they were quiet vulnerable to fall prey to the ISI designs and terror outfits active in the Valley. He further added that the State Government had further confessed that 17 FIRs had been registered against 38 Rohingyas for various offences including illegal border crossing. Urging the civil society to ponder over the serious threat, Singh called upon intellectual forums, social organisations, nationalist forces, youth and student organisations to get united to launch a mass agitation against the settlement of foreign nationals in the Duggar land. Coming down heavily on the State Government and the BJP in particular for failing to address the menace, Harsh said that the heavily mandated Saffron brigade had shown laxity in dealing with the Rohingyas and Bangladeshi nationals settling in Jammu. He regretted that the BJP which always proclaimed itself as the ‘Massiah’ of Jammu Pradesh had sealed its lips over the serious issue conspicuously aimed at changing the demography of Jammu region. He said that the BJP had sold the mandate of the Dogras for the crumbs of power and their tall promises had proved fake and fallen flat. He once again exhorted the State and Union Governments to take serious cognisance of the security threat posed by these immigrants in the wake of recent terror attacks in the state and urged the Union Ministry of Home to immediately facilitate their deportation to the native countries in the interest of the State and the country.
Gagan Pratap Singh General Secretary Young Panthers and Parshottam Parihar State Secretary PTU were also present during the press conference.