MIZORAM, India (AP) – Police officers in Myanmar who fled to India after saying they defied orders to shoot people protesting their country’s military coup, are urging the Government of India not to send them back and to grant asylum on humanitarian grounds.
One of the officers who sought refuge in a town in the northern Indian state of Mizoram along the border with Myanmar said they did not want to return to their country until the problems there were resolved.
The officer and others who spoke to The Associated Press did so on condition of anonymity out of concern for the safety of family members still in Myanmar.
Another officer who fled told AP that soldiers were ordering them to arrest, beat, torture the protesters and said police are always sent to the front when protesting. She said the officials had “no choice” but to leave Myanmar.
The security action following Myanmar’s coup on February 1 has forced many refugees across the border into India. Indian state and federal authorities did not give any figures, but some state ministers said the number could be hundreds. One Indian village has sheltered 34 police personnel and one firefighter who has been crossing into India over the past two weeks.
The AP was unable to independently verify their allegations that they had been ordered to shoot protesters, although images and reports of the suppression of security forces in Myanmar showed violent 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 are at odds over the influx of refugees. Earlier, the Mizoram government allowed refugees to enter and provide them with food and shelter.
Last week, Indian Interior Ministry told four Indian countries bordering Myanmar, including Mizoram, to prevent refugees from entering India except for humanitarian reasons.
The ministry said the states were not empowered to grant refugee status to anyone entering from Myanmar as India had not signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 protocol.
Zoramthanga, the top-elected official of Mizoram, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, saying “India can not turn a blind eye” to the humanitarian crisis in his state.
Zoramthanga, who uses one name, wrote in the letter that the residents of his state, who share ethnic ties with the refugees from the Chin communities in Myanmar, “cannot remain indifferent to their fate.” He urged the federal government to review his order and allow refugees into India.
Earlier this month, Myanmar asked India to return the police officers crossing the border. India shares a 1,643-kilometer border with Myanmar and houses thousands of refugees from Myanmar in various states.