MIZORAM – Police officers who defied the Myanmar army’s orders to shoot opponents of the coup and escaped to India are urging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to not send them back and provide them political asylum on humanitarian grounds. “What we wish is that until and unless the problem is solved in Myanmar, we do not want to go back there,” said one of the men, who has sought refuge in a village in the northeastern state of Mizoram that shares the border with Myanmar.
The military crackdown in Myanmar has forced scores of refugees over the border into India. India’s state and federal authorities haven’t given any figures, but some state ministers have said the refugees could be in hundreds.