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Rohingya Muslims forging alliance with ISI?

Indian security agencies are wary that Rohingyas Muslims, already bearing the brunt of persecution, might be exploited by ISI, to support jihad and wider call of the Ummah (Shariat-based Muslim rule).

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Influx of Rohingya Muslims who fled their persecution in Myanmar, and intelligence reports of their radicalisation as well as possibility of forging an alliance with terror outfits have prompted the Centre to seek their headcount in all states. The states have been asked to keep a watch on their activities.

Indian security agencies are wary that Rohingyas Muslims, already bearing the brunt of persecution, might be exploited by ISI, to support jihad and wider call of the Ummah (Shariat-based Muslim rule).

The security agencies are looking keenly at various developments with the recent being a Delhi-based Rohingya youth becoming pro-active in placing Rohingya issue on international forum and making contacts with the Saudi Arabia-based Gulf Rohingya Council.

The Centre, sources said, has asked states to keep a close watch on the Rohingyas who usually live in makeshift camps as there is a possibility that Rohingya youths may be waylaid into a radical path.

The security establishment is also looking curiously at the two instances where Rohingya Muslim youths got married to natives of Kishtwar and Baramulla.

Sources said that following Buddhist riots in Rakhine state in Myanmar in 2012, close to 10565 Rohingya Muslims entered India and are living in 11 states according to the bureau of immigration (BoI) figures. The maximum Rohingyas, 6684, are living in the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir where ISIS flags surfaced recently.

However, security agencies believe that the actual numbers of Rohingya Muslims living illegally in the country could be at least three times than the BoI figures and could be a disaster in the making given the recent arrest of a Rohingya Muslim youth from Hyderabad in case of Burdwan blast.

"India has porous border with Myanmar and human smuggling is highly susceptible with little money and help from insurgent groups. We have information that besides Myanmar, Rohingya Muslims also entered via Bangladesh," said sources.

Another problem that has surfaced before the Indian authorities is that some Rohingya Muslims who are staying in India for the last 4-5 years and were issued Asylum seeker cards by UNHCR in 2011 have started demanding refugee status from UNHCR to enable them to stay legally.

Taking a serious view of the repercussions it can have, the union home ministry discussed the issue threadbare with senior officials of 11 states that have presence of legal Rohingya Muslims.

These states include -- Jammu & Kashmir (6684), Andhra Pradesh (1755), Haryana (677), Delhi (760), Uttar Pradesh (111), West Bengal (309), Siliguri (42), Punjab (50), Rajasthan (162), Maharashtra (12)and Andaman & Nicobar (3).

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