THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The railways are on high alert following a central government warning that a ''huge number'' of Rohingya refugees are making a beeline for Kerala. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has issued a warning to its units in Kerala and Tamil Nadu in this regard, along with a list of 14 trains on which the refugees from Myanmar are likely to be moving to the state with their families.
On Thursday, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, speaking in Kochi, also had warned the state regarding the Rohingya plan. ''Input indicates that huge number of Rohingyas (an ethnic group of Myanmar's Rakhine province), are travelling from every corner of north-east states and ultimately heading towards Kerala,'' the alert issued on Wednesday by the Principal Chief Security Commissioner, RPF, said.
It goes on to add that, ''All Rohingyas are travelling in groups along with their families.'' RPF officers and staff have been asked to detain them and hand them over to the police for further action.
The RPF alert lists 14 south-bound trains originating from various railway stations in the eastern states of West Bengal and Assam. They include two Silchar-Thiruvananthapuram expresses, the Shalimar-Chennai Express, the Shalimar-Thiruvananthapuram Express, the Howrah-Chennai trains, the Howrah-Cape Express, Howrah-Thiruchirapally Express and the Guwahati-Tambaram and the Dibrugarh-Tambaram Express.
An ethnic minority in Myanmar, the Rohingyas began fleeing the country in 2015 after the Myanmar armed forces launched operations against what they termed Rohingya militants. It is estimated that thousands of Rohingyas have made their way to different parts of India through the porous eastern borders that the country shares with Bangladesh and Myanmar. Reportedly, the refugees are entering Kerala in the guise of migrant labourers. And in the absence of accurate data on migrant labour in the state, it would be hard to identify them once they vanish into the midst of the state's population.
A senior RPF official in Thiruvananthapuram said so far no Rohingya has been detained so far in the state. But the RPF was tracking their movement with the help of the local police under instructions from the RPF HQ.