Myanmar refugee to meet kids after 5 yrs

While the children were sent to the refugee camp to stay with Yakub,Jahura continued to languish in jail.

Myanmar citizen Jahura Begums dream of reuniting with her seven children is coming true after a five-year agonising wait in India which she entered along with her children illegally in 2009.

The 55-year-old woman fled her country after a reign of terror was allegedly unleashed by the Junta on Rohingya,which she belonged to,and other minorities in 2009,Debrup Bhattacharjee,a practising advocate attached with an NGO,Human Rights Law Network,said. Jahura had given up the hope of ever meeting her children and husband. But armed with a courts order now she will be able to reunite with her family sometime this month, Bhattacharjee said. After Jahura Begum alias Jahura Bibi entered India via Bangladesh,she and his children were caught by the BSF and were handed over to the police.

In the court where she was produced she accepted her guilt and was sentenced to imprisonment for one year and two months. But still she languished in jail prison even after the completion of her term as she failed to provide any legal document or refugee asylum status to stay back in India, Bhattacharjee said.

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As Jahurás children were juveniles at the time of arrest in 2009,they were tried under the juvenile law and handed over to the Child Welfare Department. Thereafter,they were shifted to a home for orphan children.

Jahuras husband Mohammed Yakub got in touch with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and came to India with a refugee status,in search of his missing wife and children. Yakub,while staying at a refugee camp in J&K,came in touch with an NGO which works with the Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar. The NGO traced Jahura to Dum Dum Central Jail in Bengal and his children in a home.

While the children were sent to the refugee camp to stay with Yakub,Jahura continued to languish in jail. Bhattacharjee said his NGO then undertook to reunite the family.