Twelve Years After Fleeing Xinjiang, Three Uyghur Brothers Remain Detained in India

An 18 month sentence became more than a decade in custody

Adil, Abdul Khaliq and Salamu Tursun crossed into Ladakh in June 2013 after nearly two weeks walking through remote mountains. The three Uyghur brothers from China's Xinjiang region were seeking safety from persecution. As of December 6, 2025, more than 12 years after their arrest, they remained behind bars in India.

Indian soldiers detained them near Sultan Chusku, a remote desert stretch in Ladakh, and handed them to local authorities. A court later convicted them of illegal entry and possession of knives and maps, imposing a sentence of 18 months. After they completed that sentence, authorities continued holding them under a preventive detention law.

The brothers have since been moved between prisons in Jammu and Kashmir and, most recently, to Karnal in the northern state of Haryana. They are separated from one another. Their lawyer, Muhammad Shafi Lassu, has spent years seeking their release and warning that deportation to China would expose them to severe harm.

Their case brings together three unresolved issues: why their confinement has continued after their criminal sentence ended, how India should protect people who say they fled persecution, and whether another country could accept them. The brothers say they wanted somewhere they could live openly as Uyghur Muslims without fear.

India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no national refugee law. People seeking asylum therefore depend on a patchwork of administrative decisions, court proceedings and, in some places, screening by the United Nations refugee agency. For men arrested at a sensitive border, reaching that process can be difficult.

A journey from Kashgar to a disputed border

The Tursun brothers grew up near Kashgar, a historic city in Xinjiang along the old Silk Road. By the early 2010s, surveillance of Uyghur communities had expanded, police checkpoints had multiplied, and travel and religious practice increasingly drew suspicion.

Families described relatives disappearing into detention centers with little or no explanation. The brothers say they left after relatives were taken and pressure on their own daily lives increased. Their journey was an attempt to escape those conditions.

The three men walked for nearly two weeks across arid terrain at high altitude. Navigation was difficult, and the weather was unforgiving. They carried little more than maps and basic survival tools. In parts of Ladakh, border lines are not clearly marked, while the surrounding region is shaped by longstanding disputes between India and China.

Indian forces treated their arrival as an illegal crossing. The brothers did not speak local languages and struggled to understand the legal process that followed. Their eventual conviction addressed the border crossing and possession of knives and maps; their continued detention after serving the sentence became a separate legal battle.

The main stages of their case span more than a decade:

• June 2013: The brothers crossed into Ladakh and were arrested near Sultan Chusku.
• After their arrest: A court convicted them of illegal entry and possession of knives and maps and sentenced them to 18 months in prison.
• After completing the sentence: Authorities kept them in custody under the Public Safety Act, renewing detention orders repeatedly.
• Over the following years: They were transferred among prisons in Jammu and Kashmir and later to Karnal, Haryana.
• December 6, 2025: They remained detained, while their lawyer continued seeking protection from deportation and a route to release.

How the Public Safety Act extended their confinement

The Public Safety Act in the former state of Jammu and Kashmir permits preventive detention. This means authorities can hold a person without a trial on grounds of security or public order, rather than imprisoning that person following a new criminal conviction.

The law allows detention for months and, in some cases, up to two years. Repeated orders can extend confinement much longer. Access to legal counsel and family can be restricted, and detainees can be transferred to prisons far from where they were arrested.

The brothers expected to leave prison when their 18 month sentence ended. Instead, officials applied the Public Safety Act and renewed the orders again and again. Their confinement continued through transfers within Jammu and Kashmir and then to Haryana, hundreds of kilometers away.

Lassu has petitioned courts, arguing that a public order law should not be used to keep refugees in prison indefinitely when they pose no threat and would face danger if returned to China. His challenge concerns both the grounds for their continued detention and the consequences of deportation.

The criminal sentence had a fixed length. The succession of preventive detention orders has left the brothers without a clear end date. Their case shows how a punishment measured in months can be followed by years of confinement under a different legal power.

Languages, prayer and worsening health in prison

The brothers gradually learned words in Kashmiri and Hindi while serving their initial sentence, later adding English. During their long confinement, they have learned Kashmiri, Hindi, Urdu and English and continued their daily prayers.

In Karnal, the men are separated and share cramped cells with people convicted of serious crimes. Family members and former inmates describe poor food and limited medical care. Hot summers in the plains have been punishing for men who grew up on the high plateau.

Two of the brothers developed health problems that worsened over time. Lassu says requests for specialized treatment have faced delays and denials. Alongside the legal dispute, their supporters have raised concerns about the physical cost of years in custody.

Muhammad Shafi Lassu, the lawyer who has represented the brothers for years, describes their case as a moral test as well as a legal one. He argues that people fleeing persecution should receive protection rather than detention under a public order measure designed for violent offenders.

They are victims of brutality, not criminals. Their only act was to seek safety. India should offer them protection and a chance at asylum, not deportation

Supporters also point to India's history of hosting tens of thousands of people who fled oppression in Tibet. Those communities have been able to live and work in places such as Dharamshala. Advocates argue that Uyghurs facing danger on return should receive the same spirit of protection.

Why the brothers fear returning to Xinjiang

Xinjiang is home to more than eleven million Uyghurs, a mostly Muslim community whose language belongs to the Turkic family. The region has experienced mass detention, extensive digital and physical surveillance, restrictions on religious practice, family separations and reports of forced labor.

Researchers have identified extensive networks of facilities that held, or continue to hold, large numbers of people. Former detainees describe rigid indoctrination, punishment for ordinary expressions of faith, and physical and sexual abuse.

Governments including the United States have said the campaign amounts to genocide. A United Nations assessment found that human rights violations in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. These descriptions place the treatment of Uyghurs among the most serious international human rights concerns.

Beijing rejects the allegations. Chinese authorities say their measures are intended to counter terrorism and extremism and that the programs have brought stability and development. Independent verification is difficult because access to the region is tightly controlled.

For Uyghurs who leave, the fear of return includes immediate detention, prosecution on state security grounds and long prison terms. People suspected of contact with foreign groups or religious study abroad face particular danger. Those who leave China without authorization and are later accused of links to separatism or foreign groups face a high likelihood of punishment.

The brothers' lawyer places their case within that record of abuse. His argument is that deportation would expose men who fled persecution to the authorities they were trying to escape. Their years outside China and any questioning about foreign contacts could become part of the risk they face.

The rule against sending people back to danger

Non refoulement is the principle that a person must not be returned to a place where they face a real risk of torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, or other irreparable harm. In simple terms, a government must consider the danger awaiting someone before sending them away.

India's absence from the 1951 Refugee Convention leaves asylum seekers without that treaty's domestic framework. The prohibition on returning people to serious harm also exists in customary international law and in other human rights obligations.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has recognized this safeguard as part of obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which India is a party. The brothers' petitions argue that returning them to China would breach India's international human rights commitments.

Indian courts have at times recognized that constitutional protections, including the right to life and personal liberty, extend to everyone on Indian soil, including people who are not citizens. Outcomes have varied, particularly in cases involving border security or disputed identities.

Lassu's legal argument connects those protections to the brothers' circumstances. He challenges preventive detention following a nonviolent border crossing by men fleeing persecution and seeks protection against their return to a place where they could suffer severe abuse.

The record of repression in Xinjiang is central to that argument. A decision about removal would affect much more than where the brothers live: it would determine whether they remain beyond the reach of authorities accused of mass detention and other serious violations.

India's refugee gap and unequal treatment debate

India has no national refugee law setting out a single process for people seeking protection. Asylum seekers instead rely on administrative decisions made case by case and, in some cities, refugee screening by the United Nations refugee agency.

People intercepted at sensitive borders, including Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, often do not gain access to that screening. Critics say the resulting decisions can depend more on politics and security concerns than on a person's need for protection.

India's treatment of Tibetans is a recurring comparison. Large Tibetan communities have lived in the country for decades and have been allowed to establish cultural and religious institutions. Uyghur arrivals are few and often end up in detention.

Advocates link that difference to concern about Chinese pressure and to domestic politics in which Muslim minorities face growing hostility. The debate intensified after passage of a citizenship law that speeds naturalization for certain persecuted groups while excluding Muslims.

Officials deny discriminatory intent and say security must come first. The brothers' supporters argue that a person's need for safety should guide protection decisions, including when that person arrives without authorization at a disputed border.

The United Nations refugee agency has indicated that Uyghurs who can be recognized as refugees should receive protection. Giving the brothers access to a refugee assessment would provide a process for considering their claims and could connect them with possible resettlement elsewhere.

A sensitive case in India and China relations

Ladakh places the brothers' case within a difficult relationship between India and China. Their crossing occurred in a region that has seen repeated military standoffs, and the two governments have exchanged accusations of incursions across their disputed frontier since 2013.

In 2020, a deadly clash in the Galwan Valley drove relations to a historic low. Both militaries reinforced positions along the Line of Actual Control, the line separating their areas of military control along the disputed frontier.

New Delhi has sought to strengthen its position while managing a complex relationship with a powerful neighbor. Decisions about Uyghur asylum seekers touch national security, diplomacy and public opinion, as well as the lives of those seeking protection.

Officials worry that accepting Uyghur asylum seekers could create a flashpoint with Beijing. Continued detention, however, draws criticism from human rights groups and brings legal pressure at home and abroad.

The brothers' case sits where those concerns meet. Their advocates seek a protection decision based on the danger of return, while authorities approach an arrival at a sensitive border through security and public order powers. A transfer to a safe third country has been proposed as a way to protect the men while reducing diplomatic friction.

Could resettlement open a route to release?

The brothers have explored moving to another country. Lassu has said he would seek their release through India's Supreme Court if a safe country were willing to accept them.

Canada has announced a plan to admit a significant number of Uyghur and other Turkic refugees for resettlement. Activists and community groups have tried to connect the brothers with that channel. Earlier appeals to several governments produced little progress.

No receiving country or transfer date had been confirmed for the brothers as of December 6, 2025. Their lawyer says a concrete offer from abroad could create a legal route to freedom, provided Indian authorities allow them to leave.

Resettlement would mean another country agreeing to receive the brothers so they could live there under protection. It would require more than an expression of support: the men would need access to the relevant assessment process and permission to transfer from India.

India's practice often distinguishes between communities with an established presence, such as Tibetans, and people detained at sensitive borders. Advocates argue that allowing the brothers access to refugee status determination and possible resettlement would bring their treatment into line with the rule against returning people to danger.

What return could mean, and what alternatives exist

Uyghurs returned to China have frequently disappeared into custody. Some have reappeared years later in court records or family notices following trials on state security charges. Across Asia, Uyghurs have been detained and repatriated despite warnings from human rights groups and United Nations bodies.

A forced return for the Tursun brothers would likely mean immediate detention, interrogation about foreign contacts and possible long prison terms. That prospect is the central reason their lawyer opposes deportation.

Such an outcome would also draw scrutiny of India's human rights record and complicate its effort to present itself as a responsible regional leader. For other persecuted people seeking safety at India's borders, it would signal the risks of arriving without a secure route to protection.

Legal scholars point to an alternative: recognize the men as refugees or, at minimum, protect them from return while another country considers resettlement. Advocates say a resolution does not require India to join a new treaty before taking action.

Authorities already have tools to end preventive detention, permit access to refugee screening and consider supervised release while a third country evaluates their case. Courts can weigh the right to life and the prohibition on return to danger against security concerns that have not been linked to any violent act by the brothers.

After more than 12 years, the brothers' request remains the one that began their journey: a chance to live openly and lawfully without fear. Protection in India or an agreed transfer to a safe country would offer an alternative to continued confinement and deportation.

What to Know

• Adil, Abdul Khaliq and Salamu Tursun fled Xinjiang and were arrested near Sultan Chusku in Ladakh in June 2013.
• They completed an 18 month sentence for illegal entry and possession of knives and maps, then remained detained under repeatedly renewed Public Safety Act orders.
• As of December 6, 2025, they were still in custody, most recently in Karnal, Haryana, and separated from one another.
• Two brothers developed worsening health problems. Their lawyer says specialized treatment has faced delays and denials.
• A United Nations assessment found that rights violations in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. Beijing rejects allegations of abuse.
• India is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and has no national refugee law, but other human rights obligations include protection against return to serious harm.
• Their lawyer seeks release and protection from deportation. Resettlement would require a country willing to receive them and Indian permission for their transfer.