Jammu’s ‘Guptas’ declare war on Rohingyas

Even as Jammu simmers over demands of separate statehood raised by the Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s (ABVP) vandalism to protest two Kashmiri players allegedly speaking to each other during the national anthem on a football ground, the city’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) Jammu on Friday threatened to take law in its own hands and launch a campaign to “identify and kill” Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar settled in the city for a decade or more.

The police and the government, sensitive to Facebook comments on political leaders and mythical characters, have not bothered to react even as the provocative press statement was circulated by the chamber to the media and freely aired and published.

CCI is a closely-held association of businessmen and traders who, incidentally, share a common surname. The office-bearers include Rakesh Gupta as president, Rajesh Gupta as senior vice president, Rajiv Gupta as junior vice president, Manish Gupta as secretary general, Gaurav Gupta as secretary and Ashu Gupta being the treasurer.

Ironically, Jammu’s business community comprise largely of settlers from Punjab. And observers believe that they have raised the bogey of Rohingyas to pressurise the government into meeting their old demands including compensation for the losses suffered by the strike during the Amarnath agitation in 2008.

Describing Rohingyas as ‘criminals’ and ‘drug traffickers’, the statement demands that the six thousand-odd settlers be deported within a month. Else, the gentle businessmen would be “forced” to take law into their hands.

Asked to explain what triggered such a provocative statement, the CCI president told National Herald, on Saturday, “My statement is being misinterpreted in the media. I’ll issue another statement soon.” And sure enough the revised statement issued on Saturday afternoon blames “negative and anti-social elements” for distorting the earlier statement. The word “kill”, the fresh statement explains, was meant as in “killing the issue”.

The Saturday’s statement, however, reiterated the Chamber’s stand that Rohingyas and Bangladeshis (ironically, Rohingyas from Myanmar are driven out by Bangladesh as well) in Jammu constitute a security threat and should be evicted as early as possible.

Interestingly the CCI takes refuge in the fact that Article 370 of the Indian Constitution does not allow outsiders to settle in Jammu and Kashmir. It also adds that neither the Centre nor the state is a signatory to the UN agreement on refugees.

The district administration had confiscated documents such as ration cards, Aadhaar cards and Voter ID cards from some Rohingya refugees settled in Jammu during a surprise raid in March. And earlier this week, State DGP SP Vaid, Chief Secretary BR Sharma and senior officials of the Border Security Force (BSF) met Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi to chalk out a strategy to deport the Rohingyas, according to a section of media.

As many as 5,743 Rohingyas from Myanmar and 322 other foreigners including Bangladeshis have been putting up in Jammu besides Tibetan and war refugees from Pakistan, Kashmiri Pandits and militancy-induced internally displaced people.

In February, JKNPP – which doesn’t have a single representative in the state assembly – had put up billboards asking Rohingays and Bangladeshis to “leave” Jammu. The billboards exhorted: “Wake up Jammu. Jammuites unite to save history, culture and identity of Dogras.”

Prof Hari Om, a Jammu-based columnist, who in the past has switched his political loyalties from BJP to Congress and back to BJP, posted on April 5 the following on his Facebook wall:

“If RSS is sincerely pro-Hindu, it must invoke and enforce its 2002 Kurukshetra resolution on trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir so that Jammu gets statehood, Ladakh UT (Union Territory) and Kashmiri Hindus (a) separate homeland within the Kashmir Valley. If it failed, it shall be presumed that it is as sickular as the BJP and the Congress are. Will it invoke and enforce its resolution to avert the impending disaster?”

Incidentally, Om was sacked by the BJP in November 2015 as he vociferously opposed the alliance with the Jammu and Kashmir Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Rohingyas have been described by the United Nations Human Commission for Refugees as “one of the most persecuted, excluded and vulnerable communities” in the world. In Jammu they have been doing menial jobs such as unskilled work at the construction sites, collecting garbage and picking rags. They also pay rent against the land on which they have put up shanties.