MIZORAM, India (AP) – Myanmar police officers who fled to India after saying they defied orders to shoot people protesting their country’s military coup are urging the Indian government not to return them and grant them asylum for humanitarian reasons.
One of the officers who has sought refuge in a village in northeast India, Mizoram, along the border with Myanmar, said they did not want to return to their country until the problems are resolved there.
That officer and others who spoke to The Associated Press did so on condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of family members who were still in Myanmar.
Another fleeing officer told AP that soldiers ordered them to “arrest, beat, torture protesters” and said police were always sent to the front whenever there was protest. He said officers “had no choice” but to leave Myanmar.
Security crackdown following Myanmar coup on February 1 has forced dozens of refugees on the border into India. State and federal authorities in India have not given any figures, but some state ministers have said the figure could be in the hundreds. An Indian village has sheltered 34 police officers and a firefighter who have crossed India in the past two weeks.
The AP has not been able to independently verify its claims that protesters were ordered to shoot, although images and reports of repression by security forces in Myanmar have shown an intensification of violence. against civilians. More than 200 people have been killed by security forces since the coup.
The federal government of India and the state of Mizoram disagree with the influx of refugees. Earlier, the Mizoram government had allowed refugees to enter and provided them with food and shelter.
But last week, India’s Interior Ministry told four Indian states bordering Myanmar, including Mizoram, to take steps to prevent refugees from entering India except for humanitarian reasons.
The ministry said states were not allowed to grant refugee status to anyone entering Myanmar, as India is not a signatory to the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.
On Thursday, Mizoram’s top elected official, Zoramthanga, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said “India cannot turn a blind eye” to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in his state.
Zoramthanga, who uses a name, wrote in the letter that people in his state, who share ethnic ties with refugees from Chinese communities in Myanmar, “cannot remain indifferent to their situation.” He urged the federal government to review its order and allow refugees to enter India.
Earlier this month, Myanmar called on India to return police officers who crossed the border. India shares a 1,643-kilometer (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and is home to thousands of Myanmar refugees in different states.