NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry on Thursday received the application of Baloch leader Brahamdagh Bugti for political asylum in India.
Bugti is the president and founder of Baloch Republican Party. He is the grandson of Nawab Akbar Bugti, a Baloch nationalist leader killed by the Pakistani army in 2006.
“The application is being examined at the moment. A decision will happen after completing the due process,” said a home ministry official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Bugti had applied for asylum in the Indian consulate in Geneva three days ago.
The application was sent to the home ministry as all asylum matters are dealt by the home ministry.
“Ultimately, it is a political decision at the highest level but we need to follow the process for the requisite paperwork,” the official said.
The ministry is also looking at past cases like the process adopted by the Jawaharlal Nehru government in 1959 to give asylum to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and his followers.
The government may give him permanent residency or long-term visa like it provides to persons from persecuted minority communities from Pakistan or other neighbouring countries.
India doesn’t have a uniform national asylum policy.
{{/usCountry}}India doesn’t have a uniform national asylum policy.
{{/usCountry}}The government deals with asylum matters on a case-to-case or nationality-to-nationality basis. The home ministry recently began the process of drafting the country’s national asylum policy.
The objective of the policy is to formally define a refugee, eligibility for asylum, rights, entitlements and obligations and set a time-bound legal framework for naturalisation, said the official.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says India has around 2.1 lakh people of ‘concern’ and they include nationals from Afghanistan (13,381), Myanmar (18,914), Somalia, Tibet (1.1 lakh) and Sri Lankans (64600).
The United Nations High Commissioner (UNHCR) for Refugees works with refugees who are not from the neighbouring countries. The exception is Myanmar here.
Asylum cases of refugees from neighbouring countries are dealt with by the home ministry.