Bengali Muslim family expelled from India despite citizenship records
Four family members expelled as Bangladeshis despite having Indian records, amid crackdown increasingly targeting Bengali-speaking Muslims over nationality
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Four members of a Bengali Muslim family, including a 16-year-old boy, were detained in India and allegedly pushed across the border into Bangladesh despite electoral and identity records indicating longstanding ties to India.
Police detained 60-year-old Dablu Saikh and his sons Kayem, 29, Rajaul, 20, and Asmaul, 16, from their home in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district in August after declaring them Bangladeshi nationals, according to rights group Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM).
A MASUM fact-finding investigation found Dablu and Kayem remained registered voters and had voted in West Bengal’s 2026 election. Dablu also possessed Aadhaar and ration cards, while his father appeared on an Indian electoral roll dating to 1966.
Police nevertheless maintained that Dablu was a Bangladeshi national. An officer told the rights group that Dablu and two sons had been handed to India’s Border Security Force following an order from immigration authorities and expelled to Bangladesh.
MASUM said four family members were taken away and demanded their return, as well as disclosure of the orders, nationality-verification records and border documents used to authorize their removal.
The group questioned whether authorities independently established the nationality of each son or classified them as foreigners because they belonged to the same Muslim family. Other members of the family continue to live in India and have not been declared foreigners.
The detention of 16-year-old Asmaul has raised additional concerns over safeguards for children. MASUM said authorities were required to separately establish his age, identity, nationality and legal status rather than treating him as an adult foreign national based on claims about his family.
The case comes amid a broader crackdown on Bengali-speaking Muslims whom Indian authorities have accused of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
Human Rights Watch said in June that authorities were forcibly expelling ethnic Bengali residents, mostly Muslims, without basic due process, including people claiming Indian citizenship.
The campaign intensified after India’s Hindu nationalist BJP-led government ordered states in 2025 to identify and deport undocumented migrants.
Human Rights Watch documented Indian citizens among those expelled and said Bengali-speaking Muslim migrant workers had been rounded up in several states before being taken toward the Bangladesh border.
Bangladesh has opposed such unilateral “push-ins,” insisting that nationality must first be verified and confirmed Bangladeshi citizens returned through established bilateral procedures.
MASUM has demanded an independent investigation into the family’s detention and expulsion and action against officials if records were ignored or false information was used to classify them as foreigners.
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