Poor Muslims, Uneducated, But Regular With Routine Police Visits: The People Assam Is 'Pushing Back' into Bangladesh

The Wire

2 days ago

Barpeta (Assam): On May 25, Hazera Khatun (60) and Shona Bhanu (58) – both from Barpeta district in Assam – left their homes with a rare sense of hope. They were summoned to the Superintendent of Police's office in Barpeta and allegedly told that their long-standing 'foreigner cases' were about to be dismissed.
'They told us, 'You've been fighting this case for years. After this meeting, it will all be over',' Khatun said. 'We were tired and broken after fighting for many years – so we believed them. We thought Allah had finally answered our prayers," she added.
That hope lasted only a few hours. By evening, they were locked inside a room, denied food or water, and then forced into police vehicles. They were taken to the Matia Transit Camp in Goalpara district, the largest detention facility in India for those that the government calls 'illegal foreigners.'
In May 2025, the Assam government launched a sudden and sweeping crackdown on individuals it labelled 'illegal foreigners'. As part of the drive, the government detained and also deported those who were previously declared 'foreigners'. Most of them happened to be elderly Muslims of East Bengal origin.
Both women were among the more than 300 people who were "pushed back" – a term increasingly being used by the government – to Bangladesh, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma claimed in a legislative assembly session on June 9. Sarma said the 'illegal foreigners' were pushed back to Bangladesh under the The Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950.
On May 27 at dawn, 14 people including Khatun and Bhanu were taken towards the Indo-Bangladesh border and Kurigram district in Bangladesh.
Personnel of the Border Security Force (BSF) forced both women to walk through jungle paths at gunpoint, they said. 'We had to cross the border because we were terrified,' said Bhanu.
By morning of May 28, the women found themselves on no man's land in what they suspect was the Kurigram district in Bangladesh. 'We were left like animals,' Khatun said. 'We stood in knee-deep water, under the blazing sun, without food, medicine, or a place to sit," she added.
Border Guard Bangladesh soon found them. They said the BGB detained them in an open field for the entire day, and then shifted them to a makeshift shelter. There, they were given a barebones meal. 'We were drenched, bitten by mosquitoes, and almost left to die,' Bhanu said.
D-voters
Khatun and Bhanu's nightmare began more than a decade ago, when they were each marked as D-voters or 'doubtful voters' – by the Election Commission. The D-voter category, introduced in 1997, allows electoral officials to flag individuals whose citizenship is suspected.
Once marked as D-voters, individuals' names are referred to Foreigners' Tribunals (FTs) which have been set up across Assam by the government since 1964. FTs have often been reported to operate without transparency.
Most of the people declared 'foreigners' by FTs are poor, illiterate, and Muslims of East Bengal origin. Spelling variations or missing documents can result in lifelong statelessness in the FTs' eyes.
FTs in Assam had declared more than 1.5 lakh people 'foreigners' by the end of 2023. Among those declared 'foreigners', a major portion is uneducated women who were often married off before they were of legal age, making it difficult for them to establish a connection with their parents.
Many Muslim families of East Bengali origin, however, have been living in Assam for generations.
'I had all my documents,' Khatun said. 'Land records, voter lists and labin naama (marriage certificate). Still, they called me a foreigner. I was born here. My parents and grandparents were born here.'
'I cannot prove myself a Bangladeshi citizen. But I can prove that I am an Indian citizen," Banu said.
Khatun and Bhanu say that they had been declared foreigners years ago by the FT and were held in detention camps for over three years each. Their families managed to secure bail after appealing to the Gauhati high court. Both were released on the condition that they would report to their respective police stations once a week.
The foreigners' tribunal at Barpeta. Photo: Kazi Sharowar Hussain.
"Since her release, she has never missed a single date,' Khatun's daughter, Jorina Begum, said. 'Every Wednesday, no matter how ill she was or how bad the weather was, she went to the Barpeta Road police station."
The 'push back' policy adopted by various state governments now bypasses India's legal and constitutional procedures. Lawyers say that no Indian law allows for 'pushbacks' – only deportation orders issued by the Union government, with diplomatic coordination and proof of nationality, are permitted. 'The Assam government is bypassing the law,' a Dhubri-based lawyer who chose to remain anonymous said. 'These are not deportations. These are illegal pushbacks that render people stateless.'
Both Khatun and Bhanu spent at least two days in the makeshift camp in Bangladesh. After that, the Bangladesh government officially declared that the people found in different border areas are not Bangladeshi citizens.
The women, along with 12 others, were eventually loaded into a vehicle again and brought back across the border — quietly, without any formal process or announcement.
'We thought they were going to kill us,' Khatun said. 'We were drenched, shivering, and starving. My chest hurt so badly, I truly thought I was going to die.'
Both women were found on the highway near Goalpara on May 31 where the group split and Khatun and Bhanu were left behind. Their family members, with the help of local residents, rescued them from the spot where they had been dropped off. 'We received a phone call around 11.45 pm saying that two women had been found getting drenched in the rain,' said Bhanu's brother, Ashraf Ali. 'One of them was my sister'
The Matia detention centre. Photo: Kazi Sharowar Hussain.
Khatun's daughter said she had fallen sick and needed to go to the hospital for treatment.
Khatun and Bhanu are still haunted by the incident. Khatun has grown physically weaker, while Bhanu has lost faith in people.
'I will die of a heart attack if I see the police once again,' said Khatun.
Missing
On the same Sunday, May 25, 70-year-old Karim Ali, a resident of Jania village in Barpeta district, also reported to the Superintendent of Police's office. A day earlier, his son Mannan Ali had received a phone call from the local police station, informing him that senior officials wanted to meet his father and that his "foreigner case" might be dismissed.
Following the call, Karim Ali arrived at the SP office accompanied by his son. But no meeting took place. 'They told us to wait. Suddenly, I was pushed out of the gate, and my father was locked inside,' Mannan recalled. 'Later, a large police vehicle came and took him away.'
Karim Ali had previously spent five years in a detention centre in Goalpara District Jail – before the Matia detention centre started functioning – after being declared a foreigner by a high court order. He was released during the COVID-19 pandemic following a Supreme Court directive to decongest detention camps. His wife, Saburjan Nessa, said he returned home severely ill. 'His health had deteriorated badly. He had been forced to eat rotting and low-quality food in the camp," she said.
Since his disappearance, Ali's family has desperately been searching for him. They visited the Matia detention centre, but received no answers. The police officials only said, 'We know as much as you do.'
With the help of a human rights group, the family has approached the Gauhati high court. His lawyers suspect that Ali, too, has been "pushed back" into Bangladesh.
Kazi Sharowar Hussain (Kazi Neel) is a filmmaker, journalist and a poet from Barpeta, Assam. He heads Itamugur Community Media, a platform that amplifies the voices of the marginalised communities.