MIZORAM, India (AP) – Myanmar police officers who fled to India after saying they defied orders to shoot people protesting the military coup in their country are urging the Indian government not to send them back and grant asylum for humanitarian reasons.
One of the officers who sought refuge in a village in the northeastern 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.
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 still in Myanmar.
Another fugitive officer told the AP that soldiers ordered them to “arrest, beat, torture protesters” and said police were always sent to the front whenever there was a protest. She said officers “have no choice” but to leave Myanmar.
Security crackdown following February 1 coup in Myanmar forced dozens of refugees to cross border into India. Indian state and federal authorities did not give any figures, but some state ministers said the number could be in the hundreds. An Indian village has housed 34 police and a firefighter who have been crossing India in the past two weeks.
The AP failed to independently verify its allegations that it had been ordered to shoot protesters, although images and reports of repression by security forces in Myanmar showed an increase in 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 provided them with food and shelter.
But last week, India’s interior ministry said four Indian states bordering Myanmar, including Mizoram, were taking 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 because India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol.
On Thursday, Mizoram’s top official, Zoramthanga, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and said that “India cannot close its eyes” to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in his state.
Zoramthanga, who uses only one name, wrote in the letter that people in his state, who share ethnic ties with refugees from Myanmar’s tormented communities, “cannot remain indifferent to their situation.” He called on the federal government to review its order and allow refugees in India.
Earlier this month, Myanmar called on India to return police officers who crossed the border. India has a 1,643-kilometer (1,020-mile) border with Myanmar and hosts thousands of Myanmar refugees in various states.