When 40-year-old Mohammad Saleem and his wife Numina were taken to the graveyard in Jammu’s Narwal area for the burial of their five-month-old daughter, Umar Habiba, eyewitnesses said they were brought in handcuffs.
Saleem and Numina, Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, are inmates of the Hiranagar Holding Centre in Kathua district, Jammu and Kashmir. Two of their children, Umar Habiba and one-year-old Umar Salina, were born at the holding centre, and they also have a 17-year-old son, Riazuddin, who lives with them in the holding centre.
Close relatives of the family alleged that Habiba’s death on Wednesday was caused by the inhalation of smoke from teargas shells that police had lobbed during action against protesting Rohingyas at the centre on Tuesday, but police and holding centre officials denied the claims.
According to Kathua SSP Shiv Deep Singh, the child’s death had nothing to do with Tuesday’s incident, stating that Habiba had not been keeping well since her birth.
Koushal Kumar, the superintendent of Kathua district jail and the in-charge of the holding centre, said the child had been under medication. On Tuesday evening, as her condition deteriorated, she was taken to the hospital where she died the next day.
Officials stated that the parents wanted to bury the body in Narwal where their relatives live, and the Kathua District Magistrate gave permission for them to be taken there.
They were brought to the Rohingya settlement in Narwal on Wednesday night, but when they came out of the vehicle, eyewitnesses including relatives of the family said they were shocked to see that the parents, Saleem and Numina, as well as their teenage son Riazuddin were allegedly handcuffed. They allegedly remained handcuffed for more than an hour as they grieved with their relatives and then buried the body. Afterwards, they were taken back to the Hiranagar holding centre.
However, senior police and prison officials said they had no information about the use of handcuffs in the incident, and that their staff were not involved.
Saleem had come to Jammu in 2012 along with Numina and their son Riazuddin, who was five at the time. However, the same year, police arrested Saleem during a routine checking of UNHCR cards, and was lodged in the district jail at Ambphalla. In 2021, he was moved to the holding centre in Hiranagar. Numina was also sent to the holding centre the same year when she was held from a medical camp where she had gone for a check-up. Their son, 15 by that time, was also sent to the same facility. The couple then went on to have two more children at the holding centre.
The atmosphere at the holding centre has been tense since May, with detainees holding protests and hunger strikes at frequent intervals. Protests on Tuesday led to clashes, and reinforcements of police and CRPF were brought in to bring the situation under control. Lathi charge and teargas shells were also used. Around six police personnel and more than 10 Rohingyas were injured, officials said.
The centre currently holds a total of 271 Rohingyas, including 74 women and 70 children – many of whom were born there. The centre was a sub-jail before the JK administration notified it as a holding centre on March 5, 2021, for lodging “illegal” immigrants as defined under Section 2(b) of the Citizenship Act, 1955. A number of the detainees have been there since March 6, 2021, when both the Centre and the JK administration started moving the Rohingyas, who were “illegally” staying in Jammu, to the centre ahead of their deportation to Myanmar.
However, an April 2021 Supreme Court order said those detained in Jammu should not be deported without following due procedure.
The detainees have been demanding their immediate release so that they can rejoin their family members who have been staying at Rohingya settlements outside the centre.
