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Arab News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Bengali Muslims fear detention amid immigration crackdown in India
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.'
The Hindu
25-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Caught in crackdown against illegal immigrants, two Assam residents recall perilous trip across the border
May 23 started like any other Friday for Khairul Islam. In the afternoon, he visited the police station for his weekly signature in the register -- a trip he has been making at least since 2020 when he was released on bail from a 'foreigners' detention camp' in Assam. Around 11:30 p.m., he woke up to an unusual knock on the door of his small house in Morigaon district. 'It was the border police,' he said. Within days, Mr. Islam found himself in the no man's land between India and Bangladesh. He said his hands and eyes were tied with gamchas (traditional towel) as he was transported to Bangladesh, with no opportunity to even make a phone call until he was already across the border. A government schoolteacher, Mr. Islam, 52, lives with his wife and children in the Mikirbheta police station area. He has been teaching Classes 1 to 5 at the Thangshali Khandapukuri LP primary school since 1996. In 2016, he was declared a foreigner by a tribunal and spent a couple of years appealing his case. With the Gauhati High Court having turned down his appeal and his case pending in the Supreme Court, he has been reporting at the local police station every week. However, little did he expect that he would be among thousands of 'undocumented migrants' that India had been 'pushing back' into Bangladesh. The 'pushback' exercise had begun after the Union Home Ministry asked police across the country to identify Bangladeshis who had illegally entered India and were living on forged documents. The Home Ministry's direction, which came in the wake of the regime change in Bangladesh last year, gained fresh urgency after the Pahalgam terror attack in April, with data reported by The Hindu showing that about 2,500 people had been 'pushed back' by the end of June. 'I remember being scared,' Mr. Islam says of his journey across the border in a 'large vehicle'. 'I couldn't see anything, but I could hear.' There were at least a dozen people in the vehicle along with him, he said. 'It was horrific. They were all shouting. Some were asking for water, some screamed that they wanted to relieve themselves. The officials told us to urinate in the vehicle and handed us plastic bags.' 'Throughout the journey I kept reasoning with them that I am an Indian citizen but they would not listen,' Mr. Islam said. 'I never thought I would be thrown out of my own country,' he told The Hindu, adding all were handed about 200 to 300 takas (Bangladeshi currency) before being deboarded. Mr. Islam said the group crossed the no man's land and met locals, who informed security officials in Bangladesh. After spending about a day with the officials, Mr. Islam said the group started making its way back to India. 'But suddenly, we started hearing gunshots from the Indian side. They were firing rubber pellets at us. A few more hours later, we realised that India was now asking Bangladesh for proof that we were Indians.' It was after this that Mr. Islam got the chance to make a phone call for the first time. 'The Bangladeshi officers asked us to call home, get documents if we had, and arranged to have it sent over. After that, all I remember was being ferried from one place to another until I got home. When I reached home, I found out that my wife had to file an application for my return to the district Superintendent of Police office as well,' he said, adding he was the only one in his batch to return. 'The moment I was brought back, I was taken to the SP office. All he could say was, 'This was a mistake. Please don't think too much of it and don't feel too bad',' Mr. Islam recalled. As he tries to recover from the trauma, he says painful memories of his journey across the border still flash in his mind. Rahima Begum, 50, was taken away from her home in Golaghat district on the eastern border of the State, during the same week as Mr. Islam. And like him, Ms. Rahima too was among the several Indians caught in the police crackdown on illegal immigrants. In a matter of days, Ms. Rahima was crawling across paddy fields under the midnight sky in the no man's land, with about 22 fresh stitches on her abdomen from a kidney-stone related surgery she had undergone days before. She was too scared to walk. Ms. Begum is now in a 'serious condition' at the Diphu Medical College Hospital in Assam, her husband Malekuddin Chowdhury said. 'After she returned, we saw that many of the 22 stitches had come apart.' A daily wage labourer all his life, Mr. Chowdhury has not been working for a few years now since he lost his sight partially. His teenage sons now support the family with their daily wages. As Ms. Rahima recovers in the hospital, Mr. Chowdhury said he was running out of things to sell for her treatment. 'Whatever livestock we had... ducks, chicken, goats... we sold it all.' Ms. Rahima's husband recalled that she left behind her post-surgery medication and about ₹3,000 in cash that her family members had handed over to her. He too said she was given Bangladeshi currency at the border post. However, while Ms. Rahima said she faced hostility from the security forces in Bangladesh, Mr. Islam said they were nice enough to let him make a phone call and prove that he was Indian. However, Ms. Rahima too said that her return to India did not look possible until the Bangladesh security officials had been alerted. 'We did not know what was happening. One day, we got a call from local police in Assam that we had to pick her up from there,' her husband said. Mr. Islam returned home to his wife and children days before Eid in June. 'I am still scared. I don't know what will happen going forward,' he said.
New Indian Express
08-06-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
With SC case still pending, Assam man 'pushed' into Bangladesh returns home
GUWAHATI: Khairul Islam has been very busy for the past three days responding to phone calls from friends and acquaintances. This former schoolteacher from central Assam's Morigaon district was pushed into Bangladesh along with 13 other 'illegal immigrants' on May 24. He returned home two days ago after, what he claimed, the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) handed him and six others back to India, stating that they are not Bangladeshi nationals. Islam, who is in his fifties, was declared a foreigner by a foreigners' tribunal in 2018. He challenged this in the Gauhati High Court but it upheld the tribunal's judgment. Foreigners' tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies which deal with the cases of suspected foreigners. After he lost his case in the High Court, the police arrested him and sent him to a detention centre. He walked out on bail after two years in 2020 when the Supreme Court issued an order to decongest jails in the wake of Covid pandemic. Islam told this newspaper on Saturday that he had then moved the Supreme Court and his case is still pending. He lamented that he was deported although the apex court is yet to deliver a judgment. He said he had spent two days in Bangladesh and he did not face any problem there. 'The BGB had formally handed seven of us over to the BSF. The BSF did not protest it,' Islam said. 'I have no idea if the remaining seven are in Bangladesh or India,' he added. Islam said following his handover, he was under the care of Assam Police until returning home two days ago. 'The joys of my family members knew no bounds when I arrived home. I am feeling very relaxed now. I celebrated Eid. I had no idea that I would be able to celebrate Eid at home after deportation,' he said. Meanwhile, CM Himanta Biswa Sarma has said the process of identifying foreigners will now move at a faster pace.
Indian Express
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
‘Wasn't sure I would return': ‘Pushed into Bangladesh' despite case in Supreme Court, Assam man is back home in time for Eid
Two weeks after he was detained from his home and allegedly pushed into Bangladesh by security forces, 51-year-old Khairul Islam celebrated Eid with his family in Assam's Morigaon district after he was brought back and handed over to his family. 'There are no words for the thoughts that were going through my head during those two days that I was in Bangladesh. I was fearful, I was not sure if I would ever be able to come back to my family,' he told The Indian Express, speaking from his home. Islam, a former government school primary teacher, had been declared a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal in 2016. As reported by The Indian Express, his special leave petition against the FT order was granted by the Supreme Court in December 2024, despite which he was detained by police on May 23 as part of an ongoing crackdown against declared foreigners in Assam. On May 27, a video uploaded on social media by a Bangladeshi journalist of Khairul Islam was the first indication that declared foreigners were being pushed across the International Border into the country. In the video, which purportedly shown Islam in Bangladesh's Kurigram district, he could be heard saying that on May 23, he was taken by the police from his home to the Matia transit camp – the dedicated detention centre to house 'illegal foreigners' in Assam – and that he was put into a bus with his hands tied and pushed across the border with 13 others on May 27. A few days later, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirmed that the government is pushing back declared foreigners, citing a February 4 Supreme Court order. However, Sarma also said that those with appeals pending before the Gauhati High Court or the Supreme Court 'are not being troubled.' 'My wife had seen the video of me stuck in no-man's land. At the same time, the CM also said that people with cases in the High Court and Supreme Court can't be picked up. Because I have my Supreme Court case, she made an appeal to the border branch of the Superintendent of Police's office and they assured her that they will try to bring me back in a few days. So that's how I was brought back to Assam, and I came back to my home on Thursday night,' he said. He recounted the day that the video of him was taken: 'After the security forces took us to the border and pushed us into Bangladesh, there was nowhere for us to go. The Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) also pushed us away and sent us back to the zero line or the no-man's land. That was where we were the whole day, under the sun in the paddy field. I was with 13 other people. When the media there wanted us to speak, I had to speak about our plight because the rest were unable to speak with clarity. After spending the whole day there, the BGB took us to their camp and gave us food to eat. I remember it was egg and dal. The next morning, we were taken to another camp and we spent the rest of the day there until, in the evening, seven of us were handed over back to the BSF,' he said. Islam has been battling his citizenship case for a decade now and had spent two years in detention in Tezpur central jail after the Gauhati High Court had upheld the FT order in 2018. 'I have complete hope that I will be given justice by the Supreme Court when the time comes. For now, I am glad that I am with my family today,' he said.
Scroll.in
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Assam teacher ‘pushed' into Bangladesh returns home two weeks after being detained
Assam teacher Khairul Islam, who had been 'pushed' into Bangladesh on May 27 after picked by state border police, has returned to his ancestral home in Morigaon. His family told Scroll that he had reached home on Thursday evening. 'I pray that Muslims in Assam can remain in peace,' Islam told Scroll from his home at Khandapukhuri village on Eid. As Scroll had reported, the 51-year-old former government teacher had been detained his home on the night of May 23 by the border police and forced out of Indian territory along the Bangladesh border four days later along with 13 others who were claimed to be 'infiltrators'. In a video posted on Facebook a Bangladeshi journalist from Bangladesh's Rangpur division on May 27, Khairul Islam Islam could standing in a field between Assam's South Salamar district and Bangladesh's Kurigram district 'I told the Assam police that I am a teacher and asked them to respect me,' Islam had told the journalist. 'My hands were tied like I was a thief and I was made to sit in the bus. Around 4 am, I reached here.' Until December, Islam had been a teacher in a government school. In 2016, he had been declared a foreigner by a tribunal. Two years later, the Gauhati High Court upheld the tribunal's decision. Islam spent two years in Assam's Matia detention centre and was released on bail in August 2020. The appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the High Court's decision is pending. On Saturday, he described his ordeal to Scroll. 'I was taken by the police and the same police brought me home,' he said. On May 23, the Morigaon police to the office of the superintendent of police. He was then moved to the Matia detention camp, Islam said. A few days later, the Border Security Force took him from the camp and released him the no-man's land between India and Bangladesh. 'I spent two days in the no man's land,' Islam said. The group was eventually taken to a camp of the Bangladesh Border Guard. he said. 'A few days later, the BGB brought seven of us in the border from where the police took me in custody,' Islam said. 'I was in Assam police custody since we crossed the border from Bangladesh to India and they released me on Thursday evening.' He added: 'I don't exactly remember how many days we were in three days,' he said. 'There was no sleep on our eyes during those days. How don't know how we spent those days. I don't even remember. Days and nights were same.' Islam alleged that he had been beaten in Matia camp when he refused to get into a bus that he knew was heading for the border. '…I'm an Indian so why would I go to Bangladesh?' he said. 'When I told them that, they hit me inside the Matia Detention camp.' After Islam was picked up, his family had filed an application before the Morigaon superintendent of police seeking his release, attaching all the relevant documents. 'The SP had assured that he would be back within two-four days,' Islam's wife Rita Khanam said. Islam's family is happy that he is home on Eid but Islam said no other Indian should face the ordeal he had been put through. 'I'm saying that an Indian should not be harassed like this and sent to no man's land by their own country like this,' Islam said. 'We are not Bangladeshi. We are swadesi. We have all the documents. They should check this and they should verify this before doing such acts. This is injustice and there will be judgement for this one day.' 'Malik ekojn ase,' Islam said. The Almighty will give us justice.
