NEW DELHI: Bengali-speaking Muslims in India say they are living in fear of detention and deportation amid an increasing police crackdown on “illegal immigrants” that have seen hundreds being unlawfully forced into Bangladesh, despite many being Indian citizens.
More than 1,500 Muslim men, women and children were expelled across the border between May 7 and June 15 without due process, according to a July report by Human Rights Watch, citing Bangladeshi authorities.
While crackdowns on alleged illegal immigrants from Muslim-majority Bangladesh are not new in India, the current wave followed a deadly attack in Jammu and Kashmir in April, where gunmen opened fire on visitors at a popular Himalayan tourist hotspot, killing 26 people and critically injuring many others.
As Delhi blamed the attack on “terrorists” from Pakistan, Indian states governed by officials from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have since rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling them suspected “illegal immigrants” and a potential security risk.
Khairul Islam, a 53-year-old Indian citizen and former schoolteacher from Assam state, told Arab News he was detained at his home by the police on May 24, and then forced into Bangladesh with 14 other people.
“It was a horrible experience, I was pushed into a no-man’s-land between India and Bangladesh. When I tried to enter India the Indian border guards started firing rubber bullets,” he said.
Islam was able to return about a week later, after his wife and relatives showed Indian authorities documents to prove his citizenship.
“My grandfather was from India. I have a copy of his schooling in India. His eighth-standard certificate. My father got a gun license from the government in 1952. I was a government employee and got a job as a teacher in 1997,” he said.
“This is simple harassment. Being a Bengali Muslim has become a crime in Assam. Our life has turned into a hell … They call me a foreigner just because I am a Muslim and a Bengali. Many families have been destroyed in this witch hunt … I hope justice will be done to us.”
While Bengali is the main language of Bangladesh, there are an estimated 100 million Bengali speakers in India, who mainly reside in the states of Assam, West Bengal, and Tripura. About 35 million of them identify as Muslims.
Authorities in Hindu-majority India have claimed that the expulsions were conducted to reverse irregular migration, with Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma saying that “Muslim infiltration” from Bangladesh is threatening India’s identity.
“We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unchecked Muslim infiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift. In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land,” he wrote on X on July 29.
Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said India’s approach to undocumented migrants is showing the country in a poor light.
“While governments can tackle irregular immigration, it has to be done with due process, as opposed to randomly rounding up Bengali-speaking Muslim workers in various BJP-governed states, and assuming that they are Bangladeshi nationals,” she told Arab News.
States like Assam have also seen a recent surge in evictions of thousands of families who Indian authorities accuse of staying illegally on government land.
“The ongoing evictions seem like a state policy to discriminate on religious or ethnic grounds, violating constitutional protections,” Ganguly said.
Assam residents like Shaji Ali, who was evicted from his home in Golaghat district, are also questioning the official narrative. “I was born here. My father came here from Naogaon district (in Bangladesh) more than 40 years ago. It was the previous government that settled us here.
“We have all the government facilities here. How did we become encroachers?” he told Arab News. “For the (current) government, our Bengali-Muslim identity is a problem.”
Minnatul Islam, secretary of the All Assam Minority Students Union, believes that politics is behind the ongoing clampdown.
“An inhumane situation is prevailing in Assam today. Bengali-speaking Muslims are living in great fear … This is a political move and the government of Assam is preparing for the 2026 elections and the eviction is part of the electoral agenda,” he told Arab News.
“The target is Bengali-speaking Muslims. There would be around 9 million Bengali Muslims. It’s clear that there is no Bangladeshi in Assam. Whatever the government is doing … is not healthy, it’s just targeting Muslims to serve the political interests.”
