By Nirmal Ghosh, Thailand Correspondent

BANGKOK: The Chin people, Christians living in remote and rugged north-western Myanmar, are subjected to forced labour, torture, killings and religious persecution by the country's military regime, a human rights group said yesterday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report based on interviews with Chin refugees across the region, said thousands of Chin have had to flee their homeland, mostly across the border to India as well as to Malaysia and Thailand.

The population of the Chin state is reckoned to be around 500,000. But between 75,000 and 100,000 Chin currently live in the Indian state of Mizoram, without support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). About 30,000 Chin live in Malaysia.

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