No question of deporting Rohingya children: Bengal child protection body

Branding as "inhuman" and "anti-human" the Central governments' stand on deportation of Rohingyas refugees to Myanmar, the West Bengal Commission for Protection of Child Rights (WBCPCR) on Monday said it has refused to send back refugee children to the neighbouring country.

"We have let the Chief Minister's Office know that we think it's extremely inhuman and anti-human to send the Rohingya children back on the path to death. There is no question of sending them back," WBCPCR Chairperson Ananya Chakraborti told IANS.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday asserted all Rohingyas are not terrorists even as the Central government stuck to its stand of deporting the embattled community and said some of them were linked to Pakistani terrorist groups.

Banerjee said the Central government had asked the state government to formulate a list of the children (residing in shelter homes and prison) in the state and share it with them to execute the deportation.

Asked about the numbers, Chakraborti said as many as 24 Rohingya children are present in shelter homes and 20 in prisons with their mother, adding that the child rights protection body has also refused to share the list with Centre.

The Central government on Monday told the Supreme Court not to interfere in the Rohingya issue as it was a policy decision to deport them and that some of them were linked to Pakistani terrorist groups.

As the apex court heard a petition challenging their deportation to Myanmar, it told the judges that this was an "essential executive" decision taken in the larger national interest.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Monday said the government's stand to deport Rohingya refugees was in the nation's interest.

--IANS

sgh/ssp/vd