'We Don't Know Where to Go': Rohingya Families in Jammu Left Homeless After Eviction Notices Force Them to Demolish Their Own Homes

Hundreds of Rohingya families in Jammu's Narwal area have been forced to dismantle the shelters and shops they built with their own savings after authorities issued notices to the landowners who rented them plots. With nowhere to go and police reportedly preventing them from finding new accommodation, nearly 1,800 people, including women, children and the elderly, are sitting on the roads.

Photo Source: Maktoob

JAMMU, India, They built those homes themselves. Brick by brick, plank by plank, over years of daily-wage labour and quiet determination. And this week, they were told to tear them down.

Hundreds of Rohingya families living in makeshift settlements in Jammu's Karyani Talab area of Narwal have been forced to dismantle their homes and shops after authorities served notices on the owners of plots rented out to them. Residents were seen on Tuesday and Wednesday pulling down huts, removing wooden structures and shops, and packing their belongings as landowners asked them to leave.

With nowhere to go, families are now sitting on the roads.

"We are poor labourers and earn our livelihood through daily work. We do not know where we will go now," one Rohingya resident, who did not wish to be named, told Maktoob.

What Was Left Behind

The families who lived in Karyani Talab had not arrived there recently. According to community members, some families had lived in the settlement for 15 to 16 years. Around 350 to 500 families in approximately 80 to 90 makeshift huts had been asked to leave. Authorities initially removed around 30 to 40 shops, after which the families living in the adjoining shelters were told to vacate as well.

The notices were issued to landowners, reportedly questioning them for allowing "foreigners" to settle on their plots and directing them to remove the huts and shops. The notices claimed that the land was designated for agricultural use and could not be sublet for residential purposes.

For the families, those notices meant losing everything they had built.

"We had spent our money to make these places liveable, and all that has gone in vain because now everything is in rubble," one refugee told Maktoob.

Even before the evictions, life in the settlement was far from comfortable. Residents described irregular water supply, erratic electricity and a daily scramble to access the most necessities. But it was home.

"Water is not available regularly, and electricity supply is also erratic. We somehow manage with whatever is available, because it is now a home to us," one resident said.

The families survive through informal work, including daily-wage labour and cleaning jobs in hotels and other establishments. They hold United Nations refugee cards and say they fled Myanmar after violence and persecution left them with no choice but to run.

"At that time, the situation was very bad. People left to save their lives and went wherever they found a route. We are now working as labourers and earning to feed our families," one resident said.

When asked where he would go after the eviction, his answer was as simple as it was devastating.

"We don't know. We are sitting on the roads now, nowhere to go. All what we built for years is now gone."

Nearly 1,800 People Affected

The Rohingya Human Rights Initiative said in a statement that the evictions had affected several settlements, with around 350 shelters already removed and nearly 1,800 people displaced. The organisation said families were being forced to dismantle shelters built with their limited savings and that no safe or viable alternative accommodation had been provided.

Some displaced families were considering moving to other parts of India, including Hyderabad, in search of shelter and work. Others were contemplating returning to Bangladesh. The organisation said neither option necessarily offered a safe or sustainable solution for families who had spent years building their lives in India.

Community members also alleged that attempts by some displaced families to establish temporary shelters elsewhere had been actively prevented by police. The result, the organisation said, is a cycle of displacement, with families removed from their existing homes while having no clear place where they can legally and safely relocate.

"The affected settlements include children, women and elderly people, making the absence of alternative accommodation particularly significant," the organisation said.

Government Scrutiny Preceded the Evictions

The action in Narwal comes approximately one month after a government-appointed High-Level Committee on Demographic Changes visited Jammu and inspected a Rohingya settlement in the area. The committee, headed by retired Justice Prakash Prabhakar Navlekar, was constituted by the Union government in May 2026 to examine demographic changes and recommend administrative and legal measures. It visited Jammu from August 10 to 12.

Government data presented to the committee showed that 7,656 Rohingyas had been identified across Jammu and Kashmir, with 6,737 in the Jammu region and 919 in the Kashmir Valley.

The committee's visit brought renewed official attention to Rohingya settlements across the region, with officials raising concerns about undocumented migration and security. The current evictions have moved that scrutiny from official discussions into the homes and shelters of families who have lived in Jammu for years.

In Karyani Talab, residents say they are being forced to choose between dismantling their shelters themselves and losing their belongings when the structures are forcibly removed.

"We don't have a place to settle down for now, all our belongings are shattered, and we don't know what we will do," said one resident whose family had lived in the settlement for around a year.

'An Exodus Within an Exodus'

Refugee rights lawyer and activist Fazal Abdali said the community's insecurity had intensified sharply after a 2017 PIL filed seeking the removal of Rohingya from Jammu, and a subsequent advisory issued by India's Ministry of Home Affairs on August 8, 2017, asking states to identify undocumented migrants and initiate action against them.

"The Rohingya community experienced an exodus within an exodus after 2017," Abdali told Maktoob. "A community that had already fled systematic persecution in Myanmar was suddenly exposed to a new cycle of hostility, insecurity and displacement in Jammu."

Despite the growing uncertainty, thousands of Rohingya refugees continued to live in identifiable settlements across Jammu. A settlement-wise enumeration prepared in July 2026 records 6,112 Rohingya residents across 22 locations in Jammu's East Zone alone, according to community representatives.

The sense of insecurity deepened in March 2021, when hundreds of Rohingya refugees, including women, children and people holding UNHCR documentation, were detained and taken to a holding centre at Hiranagar. The latest eviction drive has revived those fears.

"What we are witnessing now is deeply concerning because the State appears to be using private landowners as an intermediary to push an already vulnerable refugee community out of its settlements," Abdali said. "If families are being asked to leave while the police simultaneously prevent them from finding alternative rented accommodation, the result is effectively coercive displacement."

The Law Cannot Be a Weapon Against the Vulnerable

Abdali also addressed India's legal framework head-on, rejecting the argument that the absence of a dedicated refugee law leaves Rohingya families without protection.

"India does not have a comprehensive domestic refugee law and is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention," he said. "But that does not mean refugees are outside the protection of the Constitution. Article 14 guarantees equality before law and Article 21 protects life and personal liberty to every person, not merely citizens."

He pointed to the Supreme Court's jurisprudence concerning Chakma refugees, which he said established that the State has a duty to protect the life and liberty of non-citizens.

"The absence of a refugee law cannot be treated as a legal vacuum. The State cannot use the absence of such legislation to justify arbitrary eviction, persecution or actions that leave a persecuted community homeless," he said.

He also stressed the principle of non-refoulement, under which refugees must not be returned to a place where they face serious risk of persecution or grave harm.

"These are people who fled Myanmar because they feared for their lives and security. Any policy concerning their displacement must be assessed not only through the lens of land or immigration enforcement, but also through the consequences it has for their life, liberty, dignity and protection from return to danger," Abdali said.

"The fundamental question is what happens to these families after their shelters are demolished. If there is no safe and viable alternative accommodation, an eviction order does not merely change their address. It can push women, children and elderly people into homelessness and further vulnerability."

Calls for Intervention

The Rohingya Human Rights Initiative has appealed to the Jammu administration and UNHCR to halt further displacement until the humanitarian consequences are fully assessed and to ensure alternative accommodation for families already displaced. It has called for independent monitoring of the evictions and guaranteed access to food, water, sanitation, healthcare, education, and emergency shelter.

For the families now sitting on the roads of Narwal with their belongings piled beside them, those appeals feel distant. What they know is simpler and harder than any legal argument.

They fled Myanmar to save their lives. They spent fifteen years building something in Jammu. And now that too is gone.