Border Security Force (BSF) personnel keep up vigil at the Masalabari border outpost (BOP) along the Indo-Bangladesh international border. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

With the continuing arrests of “illegal” Bangladeshi immigrants in various States, Border Security Force (BSF) data show that Delhi leads among the States sending back these individuals over land via the eastern border.

In the past six months, a number of allegedly “illegal” immigrants from Bangladesh have been detained in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled States of Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Goa, and handed over to be sent back, a senior official told The Hindu.

According to data accessed by The Hindu, the Delhi Police handed over the highest number of “illegal” Bangladeshi immigrants — at least 120 detainees since January — followed by the State Police of Maharashtra (at least 110), Haryana (80), Rajasthan (70), Uttar Pradesh (65), Gujarat (65), and Goa (10).

A similar number of detainees are being sent back from other frontiers, including the south Bengal frontier, the north Bengal frontier, and several points along the Assam-Bangladesh border as well.

“The State governments and the BSF are acting on the orders of the Ministry of Home Affairs that all those who are illegally staying in the country will be arrested and deported,” the official said.

The BSF has sent back over 1,200 Bangladeshis from one of the sectors along the West Bengal-Bangladesh border. “These arrests were made while they were trying to enter India from the land border. They were pushed back in the following days on the orders of the MHA,” the official said.

​​On May 10, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said at a press conference in Guwahati that the government had decided to implement the “push back” mechanism to check infiltration instead of going by the legal route.

The detainees are not Bangladeshis who have overstayed their visas, or who entered the country legally.

On May 22, the Ministry of External Affairs said that India had asked Bangladesh to verify the nationality of 2,369 “illegal migrants” to deport them, and that some cases had been pending for more than five years.