India expels hundreds of Bengali Muslims sans due process: HRW
Staff Reporter :
Indian authorities have unlawfully expelled hundreds of ethnic Bengali Muslims to Bangladesh over the past several weeks without due legal process, claiming they are “illegal immigrants,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released on Wednesday.
Many of those expelled are believed to be Indian citizens from states bordering Bangladesh, including Assam, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh.
The report highlights what HRW describes as a disturbing rise in human rights violations by Indian authorities, particularly against the Muslim minority.
Since May 2025, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government has intensified operations to remove Bengali Muslims in what it claims is a crackdown on illegal immigration.
However, the lack of procedural safeguards, widespread abuses, and the targeting of Indian Muslims have raised serious concerns at both national and international levels.
“India’s ruling BJP is fueling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
“The authorities’ claims that they are managing irregular immigration are unconvincing given their disregard for due process rights, domestic guarantees, and international human rights standards.” According to HRW, border expulsions are being carried out without proper identification or verification.
In several BJP-ruled states-Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and Rajasthan-Muslims, mostly impoverished migrant workers, have been rounded up and handed over to Indian border forces.
In many cases, border guards allegedly beat or threatened detainees to force them into Bangladesh, without verifying their nationality.
One such victim, Khairul Islam, a 51-year-old schoolteacher from Assam and a confirmed Indian citizen, recounted being gagged, tied up, and pushed across the Bangladesh border on May 26 along with 14 others, HRW said.
“The BSF officer beat me when I refused to cross and fired rubber bullets in the air to scare me,” he said. Islam returned to India two weeks later.
The expulsions follow a deadly terrorist attack on Hindu tourists in Jammu and Kashmir in April 2025. In the aftermath, Muslims across India reportedly faced increased harassment, arbitrary detention, and property confiscation.
HRW noted that police often refused to accept detainees’ citizenship claims, seizing identity documents, phones, and personal belongings-leaving many individuals unable to contact family members or seek legal recourse.
Human Rights Watch interviewed 18 people in June 2025, including family members of those expelled and individuals who were forced out and later returned.
Despite sharing its findings with India’s Ministry of Home Affairs on July 8, the organization has received no official response.
While the Indian government has not released any data on the number of expulsions, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) reported that more than 1,500 Muslims-including men, women, and children-were expelled between May 7 and June 15.
Among them were nearly 100 Rohingya refugees originally from Myanmar. Reports also suggest the Indian Navy forced at least 40 Rohingya refugees into the sea near Myanmar with only life jackets, according to the UN Special Rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, who called the act “an affront to human decency” and a “serious violation” of international law.
The Indian Supreme Court, however, refused to block the deportation of Rohingya refugees, stating that individuals deemed to be foreigners under Indian law must be deported.
In response to reports of Rohingyas being pushed into the sea, the court dismissed the claims as a “beautifully crafted story,” despite the Indian government not issuing any denial.
Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry condemned the deportations as “unacceptable” and stated that Dhaka would only accept individuals confirmed as Bangladeshi nationals through official repatriation channels.
The ministry urged New Delhi to uphold international standards and follow transparent, verifiable procedures.
The HRW report also references the contentious citizenship verification process in Assam, where nearly two million people-primarily Bengali Muslims-were excluded from the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in 2019.
Human rights groups have long criticized Assam’s Foreigners Tribunals, which lack transparency, often function without legal representation for the accused, and allow for repeated harassment based on minor clerical discrepancies.
“The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims,” Pearson added.
“The government is undercutting India’s long history of providing refuge to the persecuted as it tries to generate political support.”
India is a signatory to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, both of which mandate the protection of individuals against discrimination based on ethnicity, race, or national origin.
HRW urged the Indian government to halt unlawful expulsions immediately and guarantee fundamental rights and protections to all individuals facing deportation.
These safeguards include access to legal representation, the right to appeal expulsion decisions, full disclosure of charges, and protection from arbitrary detention or abuse.
Furthermore, the organisation called for impartial investigations into allegations of violence or coercion by border forces, and for those responsible to be held accountable.
It also emphasised the need for humane treatment of detainees, including access to food, shelter, and medical care-especially for women, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities.
With international criticism mounting, human rights groups are calling on India to reaffirm its constitutional commitment to secularism and equality, and to cease targeting vulnerable communities for political ends.