‘Don’t be seen in India again’: Indian nationals pushed into Bangladesh at gunpoint

MURSHIDABAD/NORTH 24 PARGANAS DISTRICTS, West Bengal – Mrs Taslima Mandal had always wanted to fly in an aeroplane.

As a child growing up in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, she had marvelled at them. But when the 19-year-old finally boarded one on June 13, the experience was nightmarish.

She and her husband, Mr Fajar Mandal, 21, had allegedly been forced onto an Indian military aircraft in Pune with their hands tied, along with 150-odd others detained by the police in the western state of Maharashtra as undocumented Bangladeshi citizens.

With no idea of where they were flying to, fear hung heavily in the cabin. “We did not want to get on this plane at all. I was so scared that I can’t describe it,” Mrs Mandal, who worked as a domestic helper in Thane, a Mumbai suburb, told The Straits Times.

The Mandals’ ordeal came amid a crackdown by the Indian government on undocumented Bangladeshi migrants, who have been described as a demographic and security threat to India.

Indian states governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have intensified efforts to detain undocumented immigrants since the terror attack in Pahalgam, in the northern Kashmir region, on April 22.

According to Indian media reports, several thousand alleged Bangladeshi citizens have since been detained in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha and Delhi – all governed by the BJP.

Over 2,000 of them have reportedly been pushed into Bangladesh, allegedly forced by India’s Border Security Force (BSF) personnel.

Caught in the dragnet were also many Indian Bengali Muslim citizens such as the Mandals, from poor working-class backgrounds, who have been pushed across the border into Bangladesh by their government, raising fears of persecution among the few million such migrant workers spread around the country.

They share a similar linguistic and religious profile as most locals in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. This puts them at risk of not just being attacked as “infiltrators” by right-wing Hindu vigilantes but also detained and deported as “illegal Bangladeshis” by the Indian authorities.

In a letter in May, Bangladesh’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs told India to stop pushing people into the country, warning that it undermines mutual understanding and urging India to repatriate its citizens through proper channels instead.

An Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman told the media in May that it had asked Bangladeshi authorities to expedite the verification of the citizenship of 2,369 undocumented migrants believed to be from the neighbouring country so that they can be deported. 

In many of these cases, he claimed, the migrants had completed their prison sentences, with their citizenship verification pending for around five years. 

According to figures from the Bangladeshi Ministry of Home Affairs that were shared with ST, as many as 110 Indian nationals were pushed into Bangladesh between May 7 and June 17, along with 1,496 Bangladeshis and 64 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. ST understands that all the Indian nationals have been sent back to India.

Among them are the Mandals, who said they were picked up on June 10 in Maharashtra for allegedly being undocumented Bangladeshi migrants. The police deemed their identity documents as “fake”, and handed them over to BSF to be deported to Bangladesh. The couple returned on June 16 after they were handed back to the BSF by Border Guard Bangladesh.

At least five other Indian citizens from West Bengal have also returned home after they were forcibly pushed into Bangladesh in June, according to officials from the state’s Migrant Workers Welfare Board and West Bengal Police who helped them to return.

The Murshidabad District Police even described the return of four such individuals from Bangladesh after its intervention as “a big success” in a Facebook post on June 15.

This has raised concerns that individuals are being pushed into Bangladesh without due process. ST tried to contact the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs, as well as the BSF, to seek a response on why Indian nationals were being pushed across the border, but they did not respond despite multiple e-mails and calls over a week.

ST met five of the seven Indian citizens who said they were forcibly deported by their own government and returned after a harrowing experience. While ST has not been able to independently verify their claims, extensive interviews conducted separately with them at their homes revealed matching key details in their accounts.

This is their story. It is an ordeal also experienced by many other Indian Bengali-speaking Muslim citizens who were similarly pushed across the border.

Police say papers were ‘fake’

Mr Nazimuddin Mondal, a 34-year-old Indian construction worker from West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, was sleeping in his rented flat in Nallasopara – a city within the Mumbai Metropolitan Region – when he was rudely woken by a policeman banging a stick against his metal door. It was around 2am on June 10.

He was allegedly taken to the nearby Tulinj police station, where he found himself with 13 others who the police claimed were undocumented Bangladeshi migrants.

The police purportedly rubbished the identity documents he showed them – a biometric Aadhaar identity card, his voter ID card and a card issued to taxpayers – describing them as “fake” even though they had been issued by the government of India. “They said I could have got these made for 200 rupees (S$3),” said Mr Mondal.

The night before Mr Mondal was picked up, the police swooped on a tea shop in Mira Road, another Mumbai suburb, around 8pm and picked up several Bengali-speaking migrant workers.

Among them were two Indian construction workers from West Bengal – Mr Mehebub Sheikh, 38, and Mr Samim Khan, 30.

“We were picked up simply because we were speaking in Bengali,” said Mr Khan.

The duo and the Mandals claimed they were also told by the police that their documents are “fake” and that they had purchased them. Mr Mehebub Sheikh said he was beaten when he protested.

The five detainees informed their families in West Bengal about their detention. Though additional documents were sent – such as birth certificates, endorsements from village council leaders, local voter lists and family land deeds – these were rejected, and their mobile phones were taken away by the police.

The police in Mumbai Metropolitan Region’s Mira-Bhayandar and Vasai-Virar localities – areas from where the five detainees claimed to have been picked up – did not respond despite multiple e-mails and calls from ST.

The detainees said they spent three days in detention and had their fingerprints and irises scanned before they were handed over to the BSF.

It is not clear why these Indians were misidentified as Bangladeshi citizens. They claimed the police asked them to sing the Indian national anthem, suggesting that the authorities relied on this crude test to determine their citizenship.

Mr Khan, who is illiterate, faltered, as did Mr Mandal, who last sang the anthem in school before he dropped out in Grade 9.

“Simply speaking in Bengali is now being equated to being a Bangladeshi,” complained Mr Mandal, who has no idea of any other reason why he was labelled a Bangladeshi citizen.

The cops also purportedly checked the detainees’ phones, looking through numbers and social media and other apps for any Bangladesh connections. Another of the seven detainees, Mr Mustafa Kamal Sheikh, told Article 14, an Indian online publication, that the police held him as a Bangladeshi the moment they found a Bangladeshi phone number among his list of contacts.

Mr Samirul Islam, the chairman of the Migrant Workers Welfare Board in West Bengal, which helped the detainees return to India, told ST that board representatives were alerted by family members of the detainees.

The board also sent documents to the police in Maharashtra to prove the Indian citizenship of the seven detainees.

“They told us they would verify and release them, but instead they were pushed into Bangladesh in the dead of night without informing the state government,” said Mr Islam, a Member of Parliament from the All India Trinamool Congress party (TMC).

In the last four months, he added, the board had intervened to secure the release of thousands of Indian Bengali-speaking workers – some of them Hindus – who were detained as alleged Bangladeshi citizens.

“All this is being done entirely because of the BJP’s anti-Bengali hatred,” said Mr Islam.

In a post online on July 6, he further claimed that three other Indian citizens from West Bengal, including a five-year-old boy, were picked up by Delhi Police and also deported to Bangladesh. 

Undocumented migration from Bangladesh has been a political hot potato in India. Many Bangladeshi citizens, who slip in through the porous 4,097km border, live and work in India.

Estimates of the number of such undocumented individuals range from a few million to as high as 20 million. Apprehending and sending back such people is a priority for the Modi-led government.

This issue of undocumented migration from Bangladesh has been a matter of acrimonious dispute between the TMC, which has governed West Bengal since 2011, and the BJP.

Mr Modi’s party alleges the TMC benefits from helping Bangladeshi migrants to obtain fake documents identifying them as Indian citizens, to secure their support during elections. The TMC denies the charge. The next state-level contest is set to take place in 2026.

There has also been pressure on the authorities to fast-track the pushback process involving undocumented migrants. In May, the Ministry of Home Affairs told states to verify the credentials of suspected undocumented immigrants within 30 days. 

The seven detainees claimed they were picked up by the police and pushed into Bangladesh by the BSF in less than a week. They also alleged the BSF took away their cash and other items.

Pushback

After landing at the airport in Bagdogra in northern West Bengal, the detainees said, they were taken to a BSF camp where they were divided into small groups and transported to various locations along the India-Bangladesh border.

They were given around 300 Bangladeshi taka (S$3) each and allegedly pushed into Bangladesh at gunpoint later that night. No Bangladeshi authorities were present to receive them.

Three of the detainees – Mr Mondal, Mr Khan and Mr Mehebub Sheikh – told ST they were verbally abused and beaten with sticks by gun-toting BSF personnel, who threatened to shoot them if they did not cross over.

“They said ‘You are Bangladeshis’ and that they did not want us to be seen in India again. ‘If we see you, then we will shoot and kill you,’ they told us,” said Mr Mondal.

“We crossed over out of fear,” said Mr Mehebub Sheikh. “If not, they would have shot us. We (also) thought if we survive (across the border), at least we would be able to return.”

Mr Ravi Hemadri, director of the Development and Justice Initiative, a Delhi-based not-for-profit organisation that works with refugees, migrants and stateless people, described India’s policy of pushing back people into Bangladesh as “completely illegal”.

A statement signed by him and other activists and academics in June condemned the pushbacks.

“They are in clear violation of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which protects the right to life of all persons and not merely citizens,” they said in the statement.

“Pushbacks also risk putting the people in grave peril by putting them in the line of fire of Bangladeshi border guards or at risk of being detained by the Bangladeshi authorities for illegal border crossing,” they added.

Mr Hemadri said there is also poor clarity on the documents needed to prove one’s citizenship in India.

“And they (the police and other authorities) keep using this ambiguity to target Muslims, Bengali-speaking Muslims particularly,” he told ST. 

The return

In Bangladesh, the Mandals and Mr Mondal were detained by Border Guard Bangladesh. They then contacted family members in India, who sent identity documents so the Bangladeshi authorities could verify their claims.

By then, the police in West Bengal had also completed inquiries and found the trio to be genuine Indian citizens. Proof of citizenship was submitted by the police to the BSF, following which they were repatriated a few days later.

A video filmed by a Bangladeshi journalist on June 14, featuring Mr Mondal and Mr Minarul Sheikh, another one of the seven Indian citizens sent to Bangladesh, had gone viral, provoking anger and adding to further public pressure in West Bengal to bring them back.

In the video, Mr Mondal, who is seen weeping, and Mr Minarul Sheikh reiterate their claims of being beaten by the BSF and pushed into Bangladesh despite being Indian citizens.

In another video, shared widely on Facebook, they are seen claiming to be stuck between the two countries and desperately pleading for help from the West Bengal government.

Mr Mehebub Sheikh and Mr Khan, on the other hand, claimed to have evaded detection by the Bangladeshi authorities as they feared not being able to return. A day after being deported, they said they sneaked back into India through a hole in the border fence. They had to strip to their briefs to prevent getting entangled in the wire fence.

“I was scared for my life when crawling back to India,” added Mr Mehebub Sheikh, who feared that the BSF would shoot at them.

The following day, the two men were picked up by police in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur district who took them to their homes in the state’s Murshidabad district. 

Fears linger

Though relieved to be back home, the workers remain fearful and have not returned to their places of work in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

“What if the police catch me again? And what if this time they don’t send me to Bangladesh but kill me?” said Mr Khan.

Still, all of them said they will wait for a month or so and then try to return to Maharashtra. Similar work in West Bengal pays just about half the 1,000-odd rupees they earned daily in Mumbai’s booming construction sector, and they desperately need the extra money.

The Mandals want to build a bricks-and-mortar house to replace their fragile bamboo-and-tin shelter. Mr Khan has an unfinished house waiting for him with bricks that are still held in place with mud instead of concrete mix that he did not have the money for. The other two workers ST met also have unfinished houses that they need to plaster and paint.

Saving up for their children’s future is another pressing need. “I may skip a meal, but I will educate my son so that he doesn’t turn out illiterate like me,” vowed Mr Khan.

The workers are now demanding a migrant worker identity card that they hope will prove their Indian citizenship once and for all.

“We do not want to get caught again for speaking Bengali and be labelled as Bangladeshis. All we want is to toil and earn our livelihoods,” said Mr Mandal.