Billa Ram, who runs a small general provision shop nearby, shrugs as he says it’s only a wonder how refugees who had nothing on them have managed to own shops much bigger than his. “What they have made in five years, I could not in 20 years. Obviously, they are being helped with land and resources.”

What Ram means is that the administration and the Kashmiris living in the area want the Rohingya to not just stay but flourish.

“This market is a thorn in everyone’s eye,” says a bitter Noor Mohammad, a Rohingya who owns a meat shop in ‘Burmi market’. He demands to be left alone. His neighbour, who owns a grocery shop and refuses to tell his name, looks away and says no one in the market is “allowed” to talk.

There are enough hints that the administration is going out of its way to settle the Rohingya. They have been found possessing ration cards, Aadhaar cards, voter identity cards and, most shocking, the permanent resident certificate (PRC), all obtained through fraudulent means. Only the citizens of J&K are entitled to a PRC, which allows them to buy land, get government jobs, and pursue higher studies in the state. A Crime Investigation Department (CID) officer reveals, “Rohingyas have managed to buy state land on the outskirts. We recently found one possessing a bungalow on the outskirts worth two crores!”

A Jammu-based senior journalist, who retired as an editor of a leading daily, says all this is happening in connivance with officials at the helm of affairs. “It’s next to impossible for me to get a PRC for my children. The process is just too cumbersome. But Rohingyas seem to have been served it on a platter.”

Many suspect that at the heart of this fraud is an attempt to change the demography of Jammu. Others sound alarm bells that the Rohingya settlement is essentially an Islamist project. It suits the politics of some, and the Islamist ideology of the militants.

“How come none of the West Pakistan refugees, who are mostly Hindus, have never been made state subjects in seven decades?” asks J&K Assembly Speaker Kavinder Gupta. He is referring to an estimated 19,960 families of West Pakistan refugees who migrated to Jammu during the 1947 partition and, for years, have been protesting denial of citizenship.

The Bharatiya Janata Party leader had pointed fingers at the Rohingya for the 10 February terror attack on Sunjwan military station while speaking in the state legislative assembly. Six soldiers, a civilian, and three Jaish-e-Mohammed militants were killed in the attack carried out at the crack of dawn.

Gupta expunged his remarks after protests by the opposition party, National Conference, and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party. “I was forced to withdraw my statement. You see, they can’t hear a word against Rohingyas. Their solidarity for refugees is limited to Rohingyas!”

Also perturbed is Harsh Dev Singh, chairman of National Panthers Party. He calls the Rohingya settlement a “deep-rooted conspiracy” to alter Jammu’s demography so that Dogras are reduced to a minority. “What kind of refugees settle in a disturbed state like J&K?” he asks. “The manner in which they have come all the way here seems very sinister. Foreign hand cannot be ruled out. It’s a ticking time bomb,” declares Singh, who has been leading rallies and protests to free Jammu of the Rohingya. Singh has been demanding immediate measures for their deportation, saying any further delay is fraught with danger. Jammu has seen several rallies and protests by activists and residents demanding that the Rohingya leave.

Among these activists is advocate Ankur Sharma, who earlier filed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition in Supreme Court for scrapping of minority benefits to Muslims in J&K. Sharma says he has no doubt that the Rohingya settlement is part of a multi-pronged attack on Jammu, aimed at Islamising the region.

Sharma explains his allegations in several points, “One, we have Roshni Act legislated in Hindu-dominated areas under which state land was given primarily to Muslims in and around Jammu, Udhampur, Samba, Kathua, etc. Even as cases of Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, and Buddhists were kept pending. Two, actual minorities are denied minority rights in J&K. Three, Muslims from outside Jammu are being settled here with the aid and support of hawala money. They are being clandestinely registered as migrants (due to terrorist-related activities) and are given all incentives and sops available to Kashmiri Pandits. Four, by Kashmiri leaders’ own confession, Article 370 and 35A are aimed at maintaining the Muslim-majority character of the state. This is dangerous, bad, suicidal, and unwarranted. And now, we see planned and organised settling of the Rohingya and Bangladeshi Muslims here, with NGOs [non-governmental organisations] from the valley helping with money, taking public stands in their favour.”

Sharma further asks, “If the aim is not to propagate Islamism, why is it that militants who vow to wipe the area of ‘cow-worshipping Hindus’ have been warning against any move to deport Rohingyas?” Among others, Zakir Musa, the head of al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Kashmir, and the outfit Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulma, headed by separatist Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, have expressed solidarity with the Rohingya in Jammu.

Fall-outs of Islamism in the state are only too familiar. No wonder Jammu has been witnessing marches against the Rohingya people, at times bordering on violence.

But even as activists and political leaders talk of conspiracy theories and security threats, residents around the Rohingya settlements, who have no idea of the events in Rakhine or even the term ‘Rohingya’, want their new neighbours gone because they see them as criminals.

In Bhatindi, cross the Burmi market to enter Hindu-inhabited Rajeev Nagar and residents say they are scared of the ‘Burmi’ people. “Every night, they crowd these streets selling drugs. Stay here for an evening and see for yourself,” says an angry Satpal Sharma, a shopkeeper. “Looks like they never sleep. They are always out.”