The Centre will file an affidavit in the Supreme Court on Monday on its plans to deport Rohingya Muslims, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.

The Supreme Court had asked the government to file the affidavit on a plea against the deportation of illegal Rohingya Muslim immigrants to Myanmar.

“We will file the affidavit in the Supreme Court on September 18,” he told presspersons on the sidelines of a function here.

The plea, filed by two Rohingya immigrants, Mohammad Salimullah and Mohammad Shaqir, who are registered as refugees under the United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR), claimed they have taken refuge in India after escaping from Myanmar due to widespread discrimination, violence and bloodshed against the community there.

They challenged their deportation on several grounds, including violation of international human rights conventions.

The issue came to the fore after the Home Ministry had in July said illegal immigrants such as the Rohingyas posed grave security challenges as they might be recruited by terror groups, and asked state governments to identify and deport them.

It had directed the state governments to set up a task force at district level to identify and deport illegally-staying foreign nationals.

The government told Parliament on August 9 that according to available data, more than 14,000 Rohingyas, registered with the UNHCR, were staying in India.

However, some inputs indicate that around 40,000 Rohingyas are staying in India illegally and the Rohingyas are largely located in Jammu, Hyderabad, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Rajasthan.

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