Jafar Alam sits by a small grocery shop in the Rohingya refugee camp in New Delhi's Kalindi Kunj area.

A police officer who visited the camp had asked Alam to fill a six-page "personal data" form. Alam refused.

"Today, if you will not cooperate with us, we will not cooperate with you tomorrow," the policeman warned.

He then walked around the camp looking for other men but didn't find many as the majority had gone to work.

The policeman left within 30 minutes but told Alam that he would be returning.

"He has been coming to the camp almost every day for a week and insists that we fill these forms," said Alam, a 27-year-old Rohingya refugee who has lived in India since 2012.

"We told him several times that we will not submit these forms or give any biometric data. The Indian government will send these forms to the Myanmar embassy and then we will be deported forcibly."

The Indian government has asked states to identify members of the Rohingya refugee community, record their biometric details and report them to the central administration.

"Advisories have been issued to states. They need to identify the Rohingyas, take their biometrics and send us a report. The [central government] will initiate action through diplomatic channels with Myanmar and get it resolved," India's Home Minister Rajnath Singh said recently.

On October 4, seven Rohingya men - Mohammad Jalal, Mokbul Khan, Jalal Uddin, Mohammad Youns, Sabbir Ahamed, Rahim Uddin and Mohammad Salam - arrested in 2012 for entering India without documentation, were deported to Myanmar.

In the current situation, it would be better to kill us all here rather than deport us, because we will be killed there anyway.

The deportation came hours after India's Supreme Court refused to intervene in a plea by defense lawyer Prashant Bhushan to allow them to remain in the country.

"Even the country of their origin has accepted them as its citizens," the court said, adding that it would not interfere with the government's decision.

The men were bussed to the border town of Moreh in Manipur state, where they were handed over to Myanmar border guards.

"Today's decision by the Supreme Court marks a dark day for human rights in India," said Aakar Patel of Amnesty India.

"This decision negates India's proud tradition of providing refuge to those fleeing serious human rights violations. It endangers the most persecuted population in the world and is bereft of any empathy."

The move came two days after United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged India to support Bangladesh in providing humanitarian assistance to the Rohingya community and influence Myanmar to bring about reconciliation.

Since then, tension and fear have gripped the refugee camp in Kalindi Kunj, where 50 Rohingya families have been living for several years.

They fear deportation to Myanmar, where they say the government would throw them in jail or concentration camps.

"All the seven men who have been deported to Myanmar were in an Indian jail since 2012. After deportation, they were not sent back to their homes but thrown into jail again," Alam told Al Jazeera.

"We fear same will be done with us as well."

An estimated 40,000 Rohingya, a mostly Muslim minority, live in India having fled persecution in Buddhist-majority Myanmar over the years.

The Indian government led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has refused to grant the Rohingya refugee status.

A minister of Prime Minister's Narendra Modi's cabinet in August told the Indian parliament that the Rohingya were illegal immigrants.

"We know this, Rohingya are linked with wrong and illegal activities," said Kiren Rijiju, minister of state for home affairs.

The Rohingya men in the camp, who mostly earn a living as day-wage labourers and rickshaw drivers, reject the allegations.

"We give a list of people living in the camp to police along with documents every month," said Aman Jamal, 24.

"We work very hard to feed our families. We are not involved in any illegal activities. Not a single member from our community had been found involved in any wrongdoing."

Some sections of government and society in India consider Rohingya refugees a threat to national security.

In February 2017, at a Rohingya refugee camp in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, billboards were put up with messages such as "Wake up Jammu, Rohingyas and Bangladeshis quit Jammu".

Less than a month later, Jammu's Chamber of Commerce and Industries issued an ultimatum to the state government and threatened to "identify and kill" Rohingya if they were not deported soon.

Noor Qasim, 30, lives in the Kalindi Kunj refugee camp with his wife and two young daughters

"The Indian government should understand why are we here, in which situations we have come here," he told Al Jazeera.

Qasim, who works as a labourer at a cement warehouse for $95 a month, has been living in the camp since 2012. His mother, two brothers and two sisters are in Bangladesh.

Qasim claims the army killed his cousin sister last year as violence gripped Myanmar's Rakhine state.

"I've not seen my family since 2012. I want to go back home and live with my family again but we don't have any choice," Qasim said. "We left everything behind - our houses, businesses, fields, cattle and live like slaves here."

The persecuted minority have fled what several international leaders have termed a genocide in Myanmar, the Rohingya people's home country where they are not granted the simplest of rights - including citizenship.

Victims and rights groups have provided evidence of a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Myanmar security forces are accused of raping Rohingya women, tossing babies into fires, burning down entire villages and slaughtering thousands.

"India can deport us whenever it wants and we can't do anything because it is not our country," said Qasim. "But [Indian officials] should at least see the situation in Myanmar once. In the current situation, it would be better to kill us all here rather than deport us, because we will be killed there anyway."

The Rohingya people have still been fleeing to Bangladesh from restive Rakhine state of Myanmar and they reside in the areas that are at high risk of landslides and flooding, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

About 8,000 Rohingya refugees have fled to Bangladesh so far this year, UNHCR spokesman Andrej Mahecic said in a news conference on Friday in Geneva.

Since Aug. 25, 2017, some 750,000 refugees, mostly children and women, fled Myanmar when Myanmar forces launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community, according to the Amnesty International.

At least 9,000 Rohingya were killed in Rakhine state from Aug. 25 to Sept. 24, according to Doctors Without Borders.

In a report published on Dec. 12, the global humanitarian organization said the deaths of 71.7 percent or 6,700 Rohingya were caused by violence. They include 730 children below the age of 5.

Noting that an estimated 60,000 refugees are currently residing in areas at high risk of landslides and flooding, Mahecic said: "Between 150,000 and 200,000 Rohingya refugees will be at risk this monsoon season. They are living on land prone to landslides and flooding and are in urgent need of relocation."

In March, UNHCR and partners launched the Joint Response Plan for the Rohingya Humanitarian Crisis seeking more than $950 million in 2018 to meet the immediate needs of more than 880,000 Rohingya refugees and over 330,000 Bangladeshis in communities affected by the crisis.

"As of May, only 16 percent of needed funds have been received," Mahecic noted.

The Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in 2012.

The UN has documented mass gang rapes, killings -- including of infants and young children -- brutal beatings, and disappearances committed by security personnel. In a report, UN investigators said such violations may have constituted crimes against humanity.

The Kutupalong Rohingya refugee camp is seen in Ukhia, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, April 3, 2018. Reuters

 

Myanmar authorities have lured dozens of mainly Buddhist but with some Christians, Bangladeshi tribal families to cross the border and resettle on land abandoned by fleeing Muslim-majority Rohingya, officials said Monday.

About 50 families from remote hill and forest areas on the Bangladesh side, attracted by offers of free land and food, have moved to Rakhine State in mainly Buddhist Myanmar - the scene of a brutal army crackdown which prompted hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee.

A series of projects, either government and army-sponsored or privately funded, are transforming the area, which the military sees as the frontline of its fight against Islam in Myanmar.

Observers say Myanmar authorities are carrying out methodical social engineering schemes in northern Rakhine State in the absence of many of the Rohingya.

The families from the ethnic Marma and Mro tribes have left their homes in the Bandarban hill district, local councillor Muing Swi Thwee told AFP news agency.

He said 22 families departed from their villages in the Sangu forest reserve last month.

The families, mainly Buddhist but with some Christians, were being "lured by Myanmar" to Rakhine where they were given free land, citizenship and free food for five years, Muing Swi Thwee said.

"They are going there to fill up the land vacated by the Rohingya who have left Burma (Myanmar). They are extremely poor."

Two Bangladeshi officials in the region confirmed the migration, saying up to 55 tribal families had left for Myanmar.

"They are being lured by some people in Myanmar in return for free homes, free food for five-seven years. Some families have shifted there after being attracted by these offers," Jahangir Alam, a government district administrator, told AFP news agency.

He said some of the tribal groups have family in Rakhine and these relatives are being used to woo the Bangladeshi tribals.

"These people have religious and linguistic similarities with Myanmar. Some of their ancestors have settled there in the past," he said.

Ethnic cleansing

Nearly 700,000 Rohingya have fled Rakhine State for camps in mainly Muslim Bangladesh since Myanmar last August launched a crackdown which US and UN officials have described as "ethnic cleansing".

An agreement to repatriate Rohingya has yet to see a single refugee returned. Rohingya leaders have said the refugees will not return unless they are allowed back to their villages, many of which have been burned down by security forces, rather than to supposedly temporary resettlement camps.

A Bangladeshi security officer told AFP that Myanmar had resettled thousands of Buddhists in Rakhine State by using a settlement scheme which offers free food, homes, cows and cash.

Muing Swi Thwee said more than 100 tribal families had left his area for Myanmar in the past three years.

Al Kaiser, another government official, said a tribal man was killed and several family members were injured in a mine blast when they were crossing into Myanmar from the town of Ali Kadam.

Officials said they suspect political motives behind the migration.

"We think perhaps they (Myanmar) want to make some news using these people, that Buddhists are being tortured and repressed in Bangladesh and that's why they have left the country," said one official on condition of anonymity.

Members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) command to the Rohingya people not to cross the canal, who take shelter in No Man’s Land between Bangladesh-Myanmar border, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh [Reuters]