By Md Mojahidul Islam:
In the dead of night, a convoy of vans rolled toward the border between India and Bangladesh. Inside them were not criminals, but blindfolded and bound individuals — former teachers, grandmothers, day laborers — declared “foreigners” in a country they’ve always called home.
Since May, Indian authorities in the northeastern state of Assam have “pushed back” over 300 people, mostly Muslims, into Bangladesh. The official claim? These are undocumented immigrants. But rights groups, lawyers, and families say otherwise — that this is an unlawful campaign targeting India’s Muslim minority, stripping them of citizenship and dumping them across the border without trial or transparency.
Among the deported is Khairul Islam, a 51-year-old former schoolteacher from Morigaon district. Born and raised in Assam, he was declared a “foreigner” by Assam’s Foreigners Tribunal in 2016 despite school records, citizenship documents, and decades of service in government education.
In May, while his Supreme Court appeal was still pending, police raided his home, blindfolded him, tied his hands, and transported him along with others to the India-Bangladesh border. “I told them I am a teacher. I begged them. But they beat me and pushed me out like I was a criminal,” he said in a video filmed in Bangladesh’s Kurigram district — now viral on social media.
In another chilling case, Hazera Khatun, 62 and physically disabled, was arrested in Assam and deported overnight. Her daughter Jorina Begum says the family has proof of their Indian citizenship spanning generations. “They threatened us with guns,” Khatun recalled. “We were so scared we just walked across.”
Denied entry by Bangladeshi officials who verified her Indian documents, Khatun was forced to walk back through forests and rivers. She returned home bruised, traumatized, and silenced.
Others haven’t been so fortunate. Maleka Begum, 67, also from Assam, remains stranded in Bangladesh, unable to return due to age and poor health. “She’s alone, helpless. We’re desperate,” said her son Imran Ali, who has appealed for help.
India’s Foreigners Tribunals — quasi-judicial panels unique to Assam — are at the heart of this crisis. Accused of being opaque and error-prone, they have ruled thousands as “foreigners” based on minor discrepancies in documents, spelling mistakes, or lack of ancestral records.
Aman Wadud, a lawyer and Congress Party member, says Muslims are disproportionately targeted. “Only Muslims have to prove they are Indian. Others are automatically assumed innocent,” he said.
The Assam government, under hardline BJP Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, maintains that only illegal foreigners are being deported. But even Sarma admitted that some — like Khairul — were wrongly expelled and had to be brought back.
Bangladesh, caught off guard by the sudden pushbacks, has rejected India’s actions as unacceptable. Taskin Fahmina, senior researcher at Dhaka-based rights group Odhikar, stated bluntly: “Instead of following legal protocols, India is dumping people across the border. This violates both national and international law.”
Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, Director General of Border Guard Bangladesh, condemned the act as “a deviation from humane governance,” and warned of the regional consequences of such treatment.
Assam is not alone. In Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan, thousands of Muslims — labeled as “illegal Bangladeshis” — have been detained and deported. In Gujarat, over 6,500 people were paraded through streets by police; later it emerged that only 450 lacked documentation.
The mass detentions accelerated after April’s Kashmir militant attack, where 25 Hindu tourists were killed. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) blamed “outsiders” and launched Operation Sindhoor, a nationwide drive to expel suspected “infiltrators” — largely Muslims.
Rights activists allege the campaign is part of a broader strategy to marginalize India’s 200 million Muslims, a charge the BJP denies.
As political slogans echo and trucks roll, the human toll is staggering. Entire families sit in no man’s land, rejected by both nations. With court cases pending and documents ignored, they wander stateless and voiceless — victims of a system that no longer sees them as people, only as problems.
In a related development, Bangladesh has strongly protested what it calls India’s communal targeting of Muslims in Murshidabad, West Bengal. Violence broke out recently over protests against the Waqf Amendment Act, with arson and roadblocks spreading across Muslim-majority districts.
Bangladesh’s chief adviser’s press secretary Shafiqul Alam stated :“We strongly refute any attempts to implicate Bangladesh in India’s communal violence. We urge the Indian government and the West Bengal authorities to fully protect the minority Muslim population.”
He also rejected claims by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs that Bangladeshi miscreants were involved in the violence.
From the courts of Assam to the muddy rice fields of Kurigram, stories of deportation, despair, and defiance multiply. But behind each headline is a human being — someone who built a life, paid taxes, taught students, raised children — now cast adrift between barbed wires and bureaucracies.
And as the world watches, many ask: Is this border control? Or is this a quiet purge, cloaked in law, and executed in silence?
