India rejects UN panel’s remarks on alleged targeting of Rohingya, Bengali-speaking Muslims

New Delhi has rejected concerns raised by a United Nations racial discrimination watchdog as “politically motivated” and “highly malicious”.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said on Tuesday that law-enforcing drives targeting Rohingya, Bengali-speaking Muslims, migrants, and asylum-seekers had increased, particularly following a 2017 order by the home ministry and the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, Scroll.in reports.

According to the report, the 2017 directive outlined measures for deporting undocumented migrants, including the Rohingya. After the Pahalgam attack, the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs ordered states and Union Territories to verify people suspected of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Police in different states subsequently detained Bengali-speaking people, many of them Muslims, and demanded proof of Indian citizenship.

Some were allegedly “pushed into” Bangladesh, while others later returned after Indian authorities established that they were citizens.

Scroll.in reports that India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said the UN review was a routine treaty-body process and that New Delhi had participated in it in a “spirit of constructive engagement”. 

He said India had highlighted its constitutional protections, legal framework, pluralism and measures for disadvantaged communities.

“While we will respond to the committee’s observations through the established procedure, the inter-ministerial delegation, which was led by the Solicitor General…Tushar Mehta, had already rejected the sweeping generalisations, unsubstantiated allegations, or tendency to exceed the convention’s mandate during the review meeting,” Jaiswal was quoted as saying by Scroll.in.

The UN committee also expressed concern over alleged abuses by Indian law-enforcing against Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Castes and other groups, urging the government to take corrective action, according to Scroll.in.