India accused of illegal deportations
Activists, lawyers call recent deportations illegal, targeting Muslims
NEW DELHI: India has deported without trial to Bangladesh hundreds of people, officials from both sides said, drawing condemnation from activists and lawyers who call the recent expulsions illegal and based on ethnic profiling.
New Delhi says the people deported are undocumented migrants. The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long taken a hardline stance on immigration—particularly those from neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh—with top officials referring to them as 'termites' and 'infiltrators'.
It has also sparked fear among India's estimated 200 million Muslims, especially among speakers of Bengali, a widely spoken language in both eastern India and Bangladesh. 'Muslims, particularly from the eastern part of the country, are terrified,' said veteran Indian rights activist Harsh Mander.
'You have thrown millions into this existential fear.' Bangladesh, largely encircled by land by India, has seen relations with New Delhi turn icy since a mass uprising in 2024 toppled Dhaka's government, a former friend of India. But India also ramped up operations against migrants after a wider security crackdown in the wake of an attack in the west—the April 22 killing of 26 people, mainly Hindu tourists, in Indian-administered Kashmir. New Delhi blamed that attack on Pakistan, claims Islamabad rejected, with arguments culminating in a four-day conflict that left more than 70 dead.
Indian authorities launched an unprecedented countrywide security drive that has seen many thousands detained—and many of them eventually pushed across the border to Bangladesh at gunpoint.
Rahima Begum, from India's eastern Assam state, said police detained her for several days in late May before taking her to the Bangladesh frontier. She said she and her family had spent their life in India.
'I have lived all my life here—my parents, my grandparents, they are all from here,' she said. 'I don't know why they would do this to me.' Indian police took Begum, along with five other people, all Muslims, and forced them into swampland in the dark.
'They showed us a village in the distance and told us to crawl there,' she told AFP. 'They said: 'Do not dare to stand and walk, or we will shoot you.'' Bangladeshi locals who found the group then handed them to border police who 'thrashed' them and ordered they return to India, Begum said.
'As we approached the border, there was firing from the other side,' said the 50-year-old.
'We thought: 'This is the end. We are all going to die.'' She survived, and, a week after she was first picked up, she was dropped back home in Assam with a warning to keep quiet.
Rights activists and lawyers criticized India's drive as 'lawless'. 'You cannot deport people unless there is a country to accept them,' said New Delhi-based civil rights lawyer Sanjay Hegde. Indian law does not allow for people to be deported without due process, he added. Bangladesh has said India has pushed more than 1,600 people across its border since May.
Indian media suggests the number could be as high as 2,500. The Bangladesh Border Guards said it has sent back 100 of those pushed across—because they were Indian citizens. India has been accused of forcibly deporting Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, with navy ships dropping them off the coast of the war-torn nation.
Many of those targeted in the campaign are low-wage laborers in states governed by Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to rights activists. Indian authorities did not respond to questions about the number of people detained and deported. But Assam state's chief minister has said that more than 300 people have been deported to Bangladesh. Separately, Gujarat's police chief said more than 6,500 people have been rounded up in the western state, home to both Modi and interior minister Amit Shah. Many of those were reported to be Bengali-speaking Indians and later released. 'People of Muslim identity who happen to be Bengali speaking are being targeted as part of an ideological hate campaign,' said Mander, the activist. Nazimuddin Mondal, a 35-year-old mason, said he was picked up by police in the financial hub of Mumbai, flown on a military aircraft to the border state of Tripura and pushed into Bangladesh.
He managed to cross back, and is now back in India's West Bengal state, where he said he was born. 'The Indian security forces beat us with batons when we insisted we were Indians,' said Mondal, adding he is now scared to even go out to seek work. 'I showed them my government-issued ID, but they just would not listen.' — AFP
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab Times
4 hours ago
- Arab Times
3 killed and dozen others hospitalized after crowd surge at eastern India festival
NEW DELHI, June 29, (AP): Three people were killed and more than a dozen hospitalized Sunday following a sudden crowd surge and stampede at a popular Hindu festival in eastern India, local authorities said. "There was a sudden crowd surge of devotees during which a few people either fainted, felt suffocated or complained of breathlessness,' said Siddharth Shankar Swain, the top government official in Puri. Swain told The Associated Press that 15 people were rushed to a local government hospital, where three people were pronounced dead. Autopsies are planned to determine the exact causes of death. The other 12 people have been discharged. Tens of thousands of devotees gathered in the coastal town early Sunday, Swain said. The coastal temple town of Puri comes alive each year with the grand "Rath Yatra,' or chariot festival, in one of the world's oldest and religious processions. The centuries-old festival involves Hindu deities being taken out of the temple and driven in colorfully decorated chariots. Naveen Patnaik, a former top elected official of Odisha state where Puri is located, said in a social media post that "no government machinery (was) present to manage the surging crowds, highlighting a shocking lapse in duty.' "While I refrain from accusing the government of criminal negligence, their blatant callousness has undeniably contributed to this tragedy,' he said. Patnaik called the incident a "stampede' that "exposes the government's glaring incompetence in ensuring a peaceful festival for devotees.' In a social media post, Mohan Charan Majhi, the top elected official of Odisha, apologized for the incident, saying it occurred "due to stampede among devotees' amid excitement to have a glimpse of the deities. Majhi said the security negligence will be investigated immediately. "This negligence is inexcusable,' he said, adding that concrete action will be taken against the persons involved.
Kuwait Times
16 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
Bangladesh pushes solar to tackle energy woes
DHAKA: This aerial photograph taken on June 27, 2025 shows solar panels installed on the rooftops of the buildings in Dhaka. -- AFP DHAKA: Bangladesh's caretaker leader has ordered all government institutions including ministry buildings and schools to install solar panels to ease chronic power problems in a country regularly hit by deadly heatwaves. The South Asian nation of 170 million people has set itself a target of generating 20 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2030 -- a four-fold increase -- and rising to 30 percent by 2040, the government said in a statement. 'Bangladesh is lagging far behind its neighboring countries', the statement issued by the office of interim leader Muhammad Yunus read. 'Only 5.6 percent of our total requirement is currently met from renewable sources,' it added, noting that in neighboring India, it is 24 percent and in Sri Lanka, nearly 40 percent. The government's rooftop solar program will see all government offices, schools, colleges and hospitals installed with panels immediately, the statement issued late Thursday said. The micro-finance pioneer said the panels would be installed and operated by private sector companies, unlike the largely failed push by since-ousted former prime minister Sheikh Hasina to install panels by using government power agencies. 'The private sector will handle overall maintenance and keep the systems operational for their own business interests', the statement said. 'The government will only provide them with rooftop access'. The government has also initiated tender processes for 55 solar power plants with a total 5,238 megawatts capacity. Bangladesh relies heavily on importing cross-border power from neighboring India, as well from Nepal, especially when demand soars during the blistering heat when consumers rely on energy-hungry air conditioners to keep cool. Dhaka also began construction of the Russia-backed nuclear plant at Rooppur in 2017. The much-delayed 2,400-megawatt project will be Bangladesh's largest power station by generating capacity once fully operational. –AFP
Kuwait Times
16 hours ago
- Kuwait Times
The worst nightmare: Relatives recall Gaza strike that devastated family
The worst nightmare: Relatives recall Gaza strike that devastated family 'Death is sometimes kinder than this torture' GAZA CITY: Alaa Al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in a Zionist air strike. The pediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent's worst nightmare. 'When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying,' said Ali Al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa's husband. Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives. The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit. Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital. When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted. The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected pediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock. Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war. The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said. Asked about the incident, the Zionist entity military said it had 'struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure' near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review. 'I couldn't recognize the children in the shrouds,' Alaa's sister, Sahar al-Najjar, said through tears. 'Their features were gone.' 'It's a huge loss. Alaa is broken,' said Mohammed, another close family member. According to medical sources, Hamdi Al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital. Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions. Adam had his arm severely wounded and suffers from severe burns across his body. 'I found my brother's house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath,' Ali Al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children's bodies. Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness. 'I don't know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves.' 'There is no safe place in Gaza,' he added with a weary sigh. 'Death is sometimes kinder than this torture.' — AFP
