India accused of dumping Rohingya at sea

Noorul Amin last spoke to his brother on May 9. The call was brief, but the news he received was heartbreaking.

He discovered that his brother Kairul and four other relatives were part of a group of 40 Rohingya refugees reportedly deported by the Indian government back to Myanmar, the country they had fled years earlier out of fear.

Myanmar remains caught in a brutal civil war between the military junta, which seized power in a 2021 coup, and ethnic militias and resistance forces.

The likelihood that Amin will ever see his family again is very slim.

"I could not process the torment that my parents and the others who were taken are facing," Amin, 24, told the BBC in Delhi.

The BBC reported that three months after the Rohingya were moved from Delhi, contact was made with many of them.

Most are staying with the Ba Htoo Army (BHA), a resistance group fighting the military in the south-west of the country.

"We don't feel secure in Myanmar. This place is a complete war zone," said Soyed Noor on a video call made from the phone of a BHA member. He spoke from a wooden shelter with six other refugees around him.

The BBC also spoke with the families in Delhi and consulted experts investigating the incident.

According to the British media, the Rohingya refugees were flown from Delhi to an island in the Bay of Bengal. They were then forced onto a naval vessel wearing life jackets and set adrift in the Andaman Sea. The drifting refugees eventually reached the coast of Myanmar, where they now face an uncertain future.

Since August 2017, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar following widespread persecution and ethnic cleansing. Over 1.1 million Rohingya Muslims live in Bangladesh, where the government is working towards their safe repatriation.

However, many Rohingya seeking refuge in India have instead been dangerously sent out to sea near Myanmar’s coast, where they face conflict and insecurity.

One Rohingya, speaking to the BBC, described their treatment: "They bound our hands, covered our faces and brought us like captives [on to the boat]. Then they threw us in the sea.”

"How can someone just throw human beings into the sea?" asked Amin. "There is humanity alive in the world but I have not seen any humanity in the Indian government."

Thomas Andrews, the UN's special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, says there is "significant evidence" proving these allegations, which he has presented to India's head of mission in Geneva but has yet to receive a response.

The BBC also contacted India’s Ministry of External Affairs several times but received no response before publication.

Rohingya rights activists often express concern about their situation in India, which does not recognise Rohingya as refugees but treats them as “illegal immigrants” under its laws.

FROM DELHI TO ANDAMAN TO MYANMAR

There are 23,800 Rohingya refugees in India registered with the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency. But Human Rights Watch estimates that the actual number is upwards of 40,000.

On May 6, 40 Rohingya with UNHCR refugee cards were called to a police station in Delhi for biometric data collection. They lived in various parts of the city.

At the station, their photos and fingerprints were taken. India conducts this biometric registration annually. After several hours, the group was taken to the Inderlok Detention Centre in Delhi. Among them was Amin’s brother.

Amin said his brother called him, saying he was being sent to Myanmar.

A lawyer advised Amin to alert UNHCR about this.

On May 7, the refugees said they were taken to Hindon airport, just east of Delhi, where they boarded planes to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian territory in the Bay of Bengal.

"After getting off the plane, we saw that two buses had come to receive us," said Noor on the video call. He added he could see the words "Bhartiya Nausena" written on the side of the buses, the Hindi term referring to the Indian Navy.

"As soon as we got to the bus, they bound our hands with some plastic material and covered our face with a black muslin cloth," he said.

Although the people on the buses did not identify themselves, they were dressed in military fatigues and were speaking Hindi.

After a short bus ride, the group boarded a naval vessel in the Bay of Bengal, which Noor said they only realised later once their hands had been untied and their faces uncovered.

They describe the vessel as a large warship with two floors, at least 150m (490 feet) in length.

"Many of [the people on the ship] were wearing T-shirts, black-coloured trousers and black army boots," said Mohammad Sajjad, who was on the call with Noor. "They weren't all wearing the same thing - some in black, some in brown."

Noor says the group was on the naval vessel for 14 hours. They were given meals regularly, traditional Indian fare of rice, lentils and paneer (cheese).

Some of the men say they were subjected to violence and humiliation on the ship.

"We were treated very badly," said Noor. "Some were beaten very badly. They were slapped multiple times."

On the video call, Foyaz Ullah showed the scars on his right wrist, and described repeatedly being punched and slapped on his back and face, and poked with a bamboo rod.

"They asked me why I was in India illegally, why are you here?"

On May 8, they were taken off the warship and transferred to smaller rescue boats. The group was split, with 20 people on each boat, escorted by more than a dozen officers. They were handcuffed during the seven-hour journey.

Noor said they were then given life jackets, their hands untied, and told to jump into the water. They swam about 100 metres to shore.

They were told they had arrived in Indonesia, and the navy personnel left after dropping them off.

The BBC reported that it informed the Indian Navy about these allegations but received no reply.

On May 9, local fishermen spotted the group of 40 Rohingya and told them they were in Myanmar. The fishermen helped them with mobile phones to contact their families in India.