Mizoram Sends Rescued Rohingya Girls to 'Protection Home'

Aizawl, June 22, 2019:

A Mizoram court has ordained that eight Rohingya girls, who were rescued by the Mizoram Police from Dungtlang village in Champhai district, should be sent to a 'protection home' in capital city Aizawl.

The court has instructed the police and the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) in the district to choose a protection home for women which would be able to accommodate the Rohingya girls, who are reported to be victims of human trafficking.

Mizoram DIG (Northern Range) Lalbiakthanga Khiangte said the girls were rescued from Dungtlang village while they were being taken to Myanmar from Bangladesh via Mizoram.

The girls were produced before the chief judicial magistrate on Tuesday.

The police official did not rule out the involvement of human traffickers operating in the Sabulara area in Bangladesh where the Rohingya refugees were given shelter.

He said that although they were travelling and entering Mizoram without valid documents, the court is not likely to send them to police custody. They will be either handed over to NGOs or women protective homes run by the Social Welfare Department.

Earlier on April 25, eight Rohingya women, who were trying to enter Mizoram without any documents, were apprehended by the State police at the Mizoram-Assam border Vairengte Police check-post.

They had claimed that they were from the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh’s Sabulara and were abducted by some people on April 19 and brought them to Silchar in Assam.

The rescued Rohingya women have been kept in a Social Welfare Department-run protective home for women. A senior Home Department official said while the state government was ready to hand over the abducted girls to reputed NGOs in the country, the Ministry of Home Affairs advised against the move.

“Absence of extradition treaty between India and Myanmar made it impossible to hand over the trafficked girls to Myanmar even as the girls came from Rakhine State,” the official said, adding that the Myanmar Government would never accept Rohingya community members as citizens of the country.

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