The Wire (New Delhi) — Hours after India Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced that Rohingya refugees from Myanmar would be provided apartments in the Bakkarwala area of outer Delhi, the Home Ministry denied that any such policy had been decided. By the same evening, Puri reversed himself.

Also notable was that the housing minister initially described the Rohingya using the term “refugees,” while the Home Ministry response described them as “illegal migrants.”

The controversy began when Puri announced in a tweet yesterday morning that the Rohingyas would be relocated to “Economically Weaker Section” (EWS) apartments that have been constructed in Bakkarwala by the New Delhi Municipal Council, which are under the purview of the national government.

“India has always welcomed those who have sought refuge in the country. In a landmark decision, all Rohingya Refugees will be shifted to EWS flats in Bakkarwala area of Delhi. They will be provided basic amenities, UN High Commissioner for Refugees IDs and round-the-clock Delhi police protection,” he wrote.

He also claimed that all those who had criticized India’s refugee policy would be “disappointed” with the move to offer support to the Rohingyas.

“Those who made a career out of spreading canards on India’s refugee policy deliberately linking it to [the Citizenship (Amendment) Act] will be disappointed. India respects and follows UN Refugee Convention 1951 and provides refuge to all, regardless of their race, religion or creed,” the minister stated in a followup tweet.

The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, passed in December 2019, had sparked wide-scale protests and international criticism by using religion as a criterion for citizenship for the first time in India’s history.

Housing Minister Puri’s announcement was denied by the Home Ministry in its own tweets within eight hours:

With respect to news reports in certain sections of media regarding Rohingya illegal foreigners, it is clarified that Ministry of Home Affairs has not given any directions to provide EWS flats to Rohingya illegal migrants at Bakkarwala in New Delhi… The government of Delhi proposed to shift the Rohingyas to a new location. Ministry of Home Affairs has directed the [government of Delhi] to ensure that the Rohingya illegal foreigners will continue at the present location as Ministry of Home Affairs has already taken up the matter of their deportation with the concerned country through Ministry of External Affairs… Illegal foreigners are to be kept in a detention center till their deportation as per law.

The Home Ministry is headed by Amit Shah, a minister who has often accused opposition parties of “appeasing” the Rohingyas.

Around 1,100 Rohingyas are currently living in the Delhi area in tents.

Housing Minister Puri’s declaration that the Rohingyas would be provided apartments was openly attacked by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which leads the Delhi government, as well as by rightwing groups like the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

“A big conspiracy by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to toy with the country’s security has now been exposed. With this, the BJP has admitted their hand in settling thousands of Rohingyas in Delhi. Now they are preparing to give them… houses and shops. The people of Delhi will not allow this to happen at all. The BJP let the Rohingyas enter India, and now they are only helping them settle down to pat their own backs,” AAP chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj stated, according to Hindustan Times.

For his part, the VHP’s Alok Kumar recounted that Home Minister Amit Shah had once declared in parliament that Rohingyas would “never be accepted as refugees.” He added that the Rohingyas were “infiltrators.”

In the late evening, Housing Minister Puri wrote a short tweet indicating that he had completely reversed himself: “Home Ministry’s press release with respect to the issue of Rohingya illegal foreigners gives out the correct position.”

The “refugees” whose protection he had celebrated in the morning had become “illegal foreigners” by the same evening.

The government estimates the total number of Rohingya refugees living in India to be over 40,000, with the largest group to be found near Jammu in northern India, near the de facto border with Pakistan.

The Rohingya refugee crisis began in 2017 when the Myanmar military launched a genocidal campaign in Rakhine State. Bangladesh and Pakistan host the largest number of refugees.

This article was originally published in The Wire. Edits for style and content.

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