WEBDESK: Rights groups have raised serious concerns about reports that India has been forcibly deporting its own Indian muslim citizens to Bangladesh, in what they warn could be part of a growing crackdown targeting religious minorities.
Dozens of people, including the elderly and disabled, say they were rounded up without due legal process and forced across the border by India’s Border Security Force (BSF).
Some described being threatened with guns and left to cross rough terrain to return to their homes, after Bangladeshi border guards refused to accept them.
Hazera Khatun, a 62-year-old grandmother with physical disabilities, was among those Indian muslims pushed across the border.
According to her daughter, Jorina Begum, their family has paperwork proving two generations were born in India. “How can she be a Bangladeshi?” Begum asked.
Khatun said she was picked up on 25 May and loaded into a van the next night with 14 others, all Muslims. Those Indian muslims were driven to the border and forced to cross at gunpoint.
“They treated us like animals,” she said. “We protested that we are Indians… but they threatened us with guns and said, ‘We will shoot you if you don’t go to the other side.’ After we heard four gunshots… we got very scared and quickly walked across.”
Once in Bangladesh, Khatun and others were detained in a field by local authorities. But when documents showed they were Indians, the group was sent back.
Khatun described the journey home as terrifying, walking through rivers and forests, fearing the BSF would catch and kill them.
She finally made it back on 31 May, bruised and deeply traumatised.
In another case, 67-year-old Maleka Begam, also from Assam, said she was part of a group of 20 Muslims forced into Bangladesh during the night on 27 May.
Her son, Imran Ali, said his mother and her seven siblings all have Indian citizenship papers. “Her deportation… is completely illegal,” he said, unsure how to bring her home.
Human rights organisations in both countries are now speaking out.
Taskin Fahmina, a senior researcher at Bangladeshi group Odhikar, said, “Instead of following due legal procedure, India is pushing mainly Muslims and low-income communities from their own country to Bangladesh without any consent. This push by India is against national and international law.”
So far, around 200 people have reportedly been returned to India by Bangladeshi border authorities after their Indian citizenship was confirmed.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry says it has sent official letters to India demanding an end to the deportations, but has received no response.
In some Indian states, especially Assam, where a citizenship registry has already excluded thousands, the crackdown has intensified.
Activists say up to 100 detainees have gone missing recently, while thousands more have been detained.
Assam’s BJP chief minister, Himanta Sarma, declared that “illegal foreigners” will now be expelled automatically, promising to “intensify and expedite” the effort.
Critics argue that this surge in deportations is part of a wider campaign by the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP to marginalise the country’s Muslim population, estimated at 200 million.
The campaign escalated after a militant attack in Kashmir in April, which killed 25 Hindu tourists and a guide.
The BJP government blamed Pakistan and vowed to remove “outsiders” from within India as part of its response.
Although many of those detained are accused of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, activists and families say many are long-time Indian residents, some even born in India.
The deportations of Indian muslims are not only happening in Assam, but also in Delhi, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan.
In Gujarat alone, police claimed to have detained over 6,500 people, parading many through the streets. But later it was confirmed only 450 were actually undocumented.
In Mumbai, four Muslim men from West Bengal were deported but later returned when Bangladesh found they were Indian citizens.
“It contradicts international law and the dignity of the affected individuals,” said Maj Gen Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, head of Bangladesh’s border guard. “Acts such as abandoning people in forests, forcing women and children into rivers, or dumping stateless refugees at sea are not consistent with human rights principles.”
Despite repeated requests, India’s BSF and Assam police have not responded to the growing criticism.
But the scale of the detentions and forced deportations has alarmed rights groups, who say the policy appears to be driven by religious profiling and majoritarian politics.
The human cost is already evident in the voices of those forced across borders they never crossed on their own. For many, the trauma of being rejected by their own country may never fade.
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