NEW DELHI, 31 October — The Jammu and Kashmir Panthers Party yesterday alleged that India was "arbitrarily" deporting and harassing Palestinian and Arab students.
The Panthers Party, which will be part of Kashmir’s ruling coalition, claimed at least 24 Palestinian students had been deported from India in the past year.
Khalid Al-Sheikh, Palestine’s ambassador to India, however refuted the allegation and said that the Panthers Party had "no right to speak on behalf of Palestinian students".
Sanjay Sachdev, president of the Delhi unit of the Panthers Party, said his organization had taken up the issue after being approached by some Palestinian students who he said were being harassed by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO).
"The Panthers Party has always shown solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle and we cannot ignore this serious issue," he told a news conference here. FRRO officials, he claimed, were also harassing students from "Jordan, Iraq and other Arab nations, affecting India’s standing and friendly ties with the Arab world. "Due to such repressive measures, the number of Palestinians studying in India has fallen from 5,000 five years ago to about 350 now."
FRRO officials were not available for comment.
Sachdev claimed FRRO officials had told him the deportations were a "routine" matter and that they were acting on the government’s orders.
He accused the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee of being "pro-US and pro-Israel".
"Clearly, this action is being taken due to pressure from the US and Israel. There is no evidence that the deported students were linked to crimes or to any other illegal activities. All their travel documents were in order. "Even today, there was a case of a Palestinian student who appeared for an examination under police guard at the College of Vocational Studies (in Delhi). He will be deported tomorrow."
Sachdev said students were taken to a detention camp on the Delhi-Haryana border after the FRRO issued deportation notices to them.
He warned that the Panthers Party could launch an agitation if the government did not stop deporting Palestinian students and release those being held at the detention camp. The Palestinian envoy, however, said his embassy was capable of dealing with any problems faced by students from his country.
"We can deal with such matters in the normal way and sort them out."
Khalid Al-Sheikh said the "few hundreds" of Palestinians studying in different parts of India were facing no major problems. "Maybe a few students have certain difficulties and we deal with these and sort them out."
