As New Delhi claims to help persecuted minorities in South Asia through the law, the mainly Muslim refugees from Myanmar face deportation.
Kolkata, India – Muhammad Hamin has been unable to sleep at night since March 8 when the government of the northeast Indian state of Manipur ordered the deportation of Rohingya refugees.
On that day, the state’s Chief Minister N Biren Singh – who belongs to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) – posted on X that his government had deported the first batch of eight refugees from a group of 77 members who had “entered India illegally”.
The deportation was later stopped after Myanmar authorities refused to work with India on the matter.
Hamin, a Rohingya who came to India in 2018, is in New Delhi, some 1,700km (1,050 miles) away from Manipur. But the 26-year-old, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in business administration in India’s capital, spends his time watching television or scrolling through social media platforms on his mobile phone for any updates on attempts to deport members of his community.
He does this even as he observes the dawn-to-dusk fasts during the holy month of Ramadan.
This story was originally published in aljazeera.com. Read the full story here.