Bangladesh has to deal with another challenge. Deportation of illegal immigrant Bangladeshis from India.
The Narendra Modi government quietly launched Long-Overdue 'Deportation Of Illegal Bangladeshi Muslim Migrants'
The regional party AGP in the 1990s had charged the Congress-led Tarun Gogoi and Hiteshwar Saikia regimes for being “soft toward Bangladeshi guests”.
The Bangladeshi media claimed over 800 individuals had been "pushed into" the country by the Border Security Force (BSF) since May 7 -- that is post Pahalgam when efforts to identify such elements were intensified in Delhi and even in western region including Gujarat.
Detection and deportation of Bangladeshis have been a focused subject of special attention for the Modi government since 2014 itself.
The then Home Minister Rajnath Singh had directed various agencies to initiate necessary steps in this regard.
In 2016 that is about two years after coming to power, the centre informed Parliament that there are around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants staying in India.
The central Govt documents show of the 34,267 people suspected to be illegal Bangladeshi migrants and reviewed by Delhi Police, documents of 33,217 people were found to be genuine.
Paper verification of 280 people still under process.
Of course, detection of illegal immigrants both Pakistanis and Bangladeshis have been intensified post-Pahalgam terror attack.
From Delh in the five to six months, at least 770 have been deported to Bangladesh as part of the crackdown operation.
Delhi Police have lately identified 470 others (generally after April 23) as illegal Bangladeshi migrants and another 50 as foreigners who have overstayed.
They have been air-lifted from Delhi/Hindon air base to Tripura capital Agartala and then deported via the land border to Bangladesh.
The Union Ministry of Home Affairs had directed in 2024 to undertake a verification exercise to identify and detain illegal Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingyas.
Between November 15, 2024, and April 20, 2025, around 220 illegal migrants were nabbed by Delhi Police.
They were handed over to the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office (FRRO), taken by rail and road to eastern states, and sent to Bangladesh via land borders.
After the BJP came to power in Delhi ousting the AAP; Home Minister Amit Shah directed the police to increase the level of investigation and take strict legal action against networks that help illegal Bangladeshis and Rohingyas enter India and help them obtain fake documents.
After the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, the Government sought more actions to intensify detection and deportation all illegal migrants at the earliest.
Around five makeshift holding centres were built by Delhi Police; they were told to coordinate with the FRRO, and drop the illegal migrants in a special plane to Agartala airport and West Bengal.
Till April 30 this year, around 100 Bangladeshi illegal immigrants have been handed over to the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), the country's border-guarding paramilitary force.
West Bengal's Cooch Behar lies across the border from Lalmonirhat.
'The Daily Star' - popular English daily in Dhaka, reported that 13 individuals, including women and infants, remained stranded at the zero line at Lalmonirghat, "unable to cross into Bangladesh and denied re-entry into India". There are no fresh updates on those stranded.
The report said BGB personnel and locals reached the spot upon learning that the BSF was sending back illegal immigrants.
Abdus Salam, a BGB Battalion commander at Lalmonirhat, told 'The Daily Star' that a flag meeting with the BSF had been requested but didn't yield any response, said a report in 'India Today'.
Since August 2024 after Sheikh Hasina was ousted; India is on a high alert along its international border with Bangladesh and this was expected,
Thousands of Bangladeshis, mostly Hindus, were camping along the border with India, seemingly desperate to cross over in the hope of a safer sanctuary away from the turmoil back home.
However, India's elite BSF personnel preventing them from crossing over.
“We cannot take you inside as per our wish… this problem cannot be solved in one day,” a senior BSF official said in a video footage shared by Bangladesh’s Tista TV News in August 2024 within a week since Aug 5th - the day Hasina fled to India.
In 2019, the Modi government enacted a law Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) that allows non-Muslims persecuted in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh getting Indian citizenship.
But there was a catch. The deadline fixed was Dec 31, 2014.
Post-Pahalga, as India intensified identifying and deporting Bangladeshis, Bangladesh's National Security Advisor, Khalilur Rahman, protested saying that the deportations should be carried out “through formal channels”.
ends
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