Citizenship status likely for Chakma, Hajong refugees

From a Correspondent

New Delhi, Sept 13: India is likely to grant citizenship status to Chakma and Hajong refugees living in Aruchal Pradesh for more than half a century. Union Home Minister Rajth Singh on Wednesday had a detailed meeting over the issue with Aruchal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu, Union Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju and tiol Security Adviser Ajit Doval. Singh reportedly asked them to begin the process in this direction during the meeting. The development comes a day after India was pulled up by the United tions Human Rights Council (UNHCR) chief Joaquín Alexander Maza Martelli for its plan to deport Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar, where the community is facing violence. Rijiju had recently said that India will deport all Rohingya refugees, though he had ruled out use of force.

In 2015, the Supreme Court had asked the Centre to grant citizenship to Chakma and Hajong refugees. But protests against such move by several organisations and civil society groups in Aruchal Pradesh had stopped the move.

Earlier living in the Chittagong Hills Tracts of Bangladesh, the Chakmas and Hajongs fled their homes when their land was submerged by the Kaptai dam in the 1960s.

The Chakmas, who are Buddhist, and the Hajongs, who are Hindus, had faced religious persecution too in Bangladesh. They entered India through the Lushai Hills (now Mizoram), after which the Government moved a majority of them to Aruchal Pradesh.