Uighur siblings in India jail since 2013 face deportation threat

Three brothers who fled China’s persecution in Xinjiang and landed in Kashmir now fear New Delhi may send them back. After spending 10 months in a jail in Ladakh’s main city of Leh where the siblings picked up some Urdu and Ladakhi languages, they confessed before the court that they crossed over to India “without any travel documents and that they were in possession of knives and maps” when the Indian army apprehended them. “They also told me that ITBP officials mentioned their age wrongly and that they were actually 16, 18 and 20 years old, respectively,” said Lassu, a lawyer in Ladakh who is fighting their cases pro bono since he met them during a jail visit in 2014. “Even the jail superintendent at that time told me they behave like kids, they play with each other, fight at times and then behave normally again.” But what seemed like a few months of imprisonment turned into a decade-long ordeal for the Uighur siblings after Indian authorities charged them under the stringent Public Safety Act in March 2015. “Indian authorities should be aware that the UN has found that the Chinese government’s abuses against the Uighurs can constitute crimes against humanity,” Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera.