Rohingyas must be deported: Govindacharya to SC

Former BJP leader and RSS ideologue K.N. Govindacharya on Friday filed a petition in the Supreme Court urging deportation of Rohingya Muslim refugees as allowing them to stay in the country may lead to another partition.

In an impleadment application filed in the apex court, he said the "population explosion" is taking a heavy toll on the already strained resources of the country.

"People are dying in Delhi under heaps of garbage and Rohingyas' demand to the government to provide them with basic amenities violate the fundamental rights of Indians," he said in the petition.

The Supreme Court will on September 11 hear a plea seeking a direction to the central government not to deport about 40,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees back to Myanmar.

Govindacharya said that if the Rohingyas' plea is entertained then it may lead to another partition of the country.

"It has also become known that Al-Qaeda is trying to use the Rohingya community for terror and Jihad and and if the Rohingyas' plea is entertained then it may lead to another partition of the country. The Union Home Ministry has also issued an advisory to all states asking them to identify and deport all illegally staying immigrants as they pose a threat to national security," he said.

The petition said that the decision by the government to deport Rohingyas was not taken in haste. Its decision to consult the National Security Advisor, Intelligence Bureau Director, besides other top officers of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) and other intelligence agencies shows that the "threat is credible".

"Rohingyas have no constitutional right to stay in India and their deportation would be in consonance with the exercise of the sovereign power vested with the central government and their deportation does not violate international law," it said.

Citing the Supreme Court's earlier direction to the central government to put a check on cross-border influx of illegal immigrants, the applicant urged the apex court not to make an exception for the Rohingyas as the interest of the Indian citizens were paramount.

--IANS

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