New York: The US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has asked India to halt alleged expulsions of ethnic Chin refugees to Myanmar where many could face persecution from the military.

It said last week authorities in the northeastern state of Mizoram turned over more than 100 Chin, who are an ethnic and religious minority in northwestern Myanmar, to Myanmar’s Army along the border and detained more than 1,000 others pending deportation.

The rights watchdog group said quoting "local sources" that police in Mizoram are preparing to deport another group of Chin on August 18. "Any wholesale deportation to Burma (Myanmar) without safeguards for protecting genuine refugees is unacceptable," Sidney Jones, Asia director of Human Rights Watch, said in a press release.

"The general level of repression in Burma should be enough to justify those safeguards. But when the deportees belong to an ethnic minority, and the Burmese Army is considering counterinsurgency operations near their homes, protection becomes absolutely vital," Jones said.

The HRW also asked the Indian government to give the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) immediate access to the detainees so that anyone with a valid fear of persecution could make a formal claim for refugee status.

At the moment, it said, not only is there no presence of the UNHCR, but also there is even concern that local officials may be ignoring the applicable law that requires that any potential deportee has a judicial hearing.

Although India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, New Delhi has always taken an active role in refugee-related problems, diplomatic sources told IANS last week. According to a new report by the United States Committee for Refugees (USCR) there are more than 292,000 refugees living in India, including people from Sri Lanka, Tibet, Bhutan, Myanmar and Afghanistan.

India Abroad News Service