India pushes over 2,000 people into Bangladesh amid border crackdown

Victims report abuse and illegal expulsions as Delhi ramps up pressure after Kashmir attack; Indian citizens among those pushed across

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Indian authorities have forcibly pushed more than 2,000 people across the border into Bangladesh over the past month in an aggressive campaign targeting alleged undocumented Bangladeshi migrants.

Carried out with little to no coordination with Bangladeshi officials, the pushbacks have sparked alarm among rights groups, who say the operation disproportionately affects Muslims, many of whom are long-time Indian residents — or even citizens.

The expulsions follow a spike in nationalist rhetoric after the April 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir, where 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed in Pahalgam. 

Amid rising India-Pakistan tensions, the Indian government has escalated actions against perceived internal threats — including a crackdown on dissent and migrants.

According to Indian government sources, the deportations began in early May following a nationwide verification exercise. While officially framed as a removal of “illegal Bangladeshi migrants,” the operation spans Delhi, Haryana, Assam, Tripura, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Meghalaya. 

Gujarat alone accounted for nearly half of the deportations, with over 500 people removed from Delhi in just one month. Many of those expelled had lived in India for years, some for decades.

The individuals were reportedly flown in Indian Air Force aircraft to border regions, where they were placed in makeshift detention camps and then handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF).

 From there, they were forcibly pushed across the heavily surveilled and often barbed-wire-fenced border into Bangladeshi territory — without official deportation orders or notice to Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB).

Victims describe horrifying experiences. In one case reported by The Daily Star, Selina Begum, 41, said BSF officers tied empty plastic bottles to her and her three daughters to keep them afloat before pushing them into the Feni River near the Tripura border at night. 

The family floated for hours before being rescued by locals in Khagrachari on May 22.

Another woman, who had lived in Delhi for over a decade, said she and her husband were picked up on May 10 along with 46 others. “They kept us in police custody for three days without food or water,” she told reporters. “Then they drove us to the border at 3 a.m. and pushed us through the fence.”

While Indian officials insist the crackdown targets only undocumented migrants, rights groups say Muslims, particularly Bengali speakers, have been singled out.

The Mumbai-based Citizens for Justice and Peace accused Indian police in the state of Assam of randomly detaining people based on Muslim names and Bengali language use. In Assam — already infamous for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) that rendered nearly two million people stateless in 2019 — numerous residents have now gone missing after being detained by police.

Reports from Assam’s Dhubri, Morigaon, Chirang, Darrang, Kokrajhar, and Barpeta suggest that many detainees were later discovered to have been expelled across the border.

According to The Scroll,  One such case is Manikjan Begum, 42, who was detained on May 25. Her son, Barek Ali, later saw a video on Facebook showing his mother and 12 others — including six women and a baby — stranded at the zero line between India and Bangladesh on May 28.

“She was just standing there, holding her eight-month-old grandchild,” Ali said. “They threw her out of the country. Is this how a democracy treats its people?”

A report by The Daily Star confirmed that the group had been left at the border strip, denied entry into Bangladesh and barred from returning to India. Many remain trapped in legal limbo, with no home and no state willing to accept them.

There have also been instances of Indian Muslims being mistakenly — or intentionally — expelled. In one case, two women from Assam, Shona Bhanu and Rahima Begum, were forced into no-man’s-land by Indian guards but later managed to return home. Others, however, have not been so fortunate.

India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has long framed undocumented migration from Bangladesh as a national security threat, has intensified its Hindutva-based ideological project since the Kashmir attack. 

Rights Advocates  say Muslims are increasingly branded as outsiders, regardless of citizenship or tenure in the country.

With over 2,000 people pushed out, including vulnerable women and children, and some confirmed Indian citizens among them, legal experts warn the operation may violate both Indian constitutional protections and international human rights obligations.