NEW DELHI: India has deported nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi nationals from the eastern state of West Bengal since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power there last month, according to official statistics.
Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won a victory in elections in the eastern border state of more than 100 million people. India shares a long border with Muslim-majority Bangladesh.
On taking power, the new West Bengal government ordered the establishment of detention centres for Bangladeshis.
State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, speaking in the capital Kolkata on Sunday, said nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens had been deported across the border.
“We have started the work of deporting Bangladeshis who do not fall under the purview of the Citizenship Amendment Act,” Adhikari said, saying the government had “established holding centres in all districts of the state” in May.
“From these centres, 4,800 Bangladeshis have already been deported so far,” he added.
“Another 836 people are currently in the holding centres… we are making arrangements to deport the 836 soon,” Adhikari said.
The deportation campaign comes against a backdrop of longstanding political tensions over immigration in the border state.
Top Indian officials have referred to migrants as “termites” and “infiltrators”.
Critics say the BJP’s rhetoric and policies have added to the unease and marginalisation of India’s more than 200 million Muslims, accusing the party of conflating religious identity with illegal migration.
Rights groups have previously accused India of also pushing hundreds of Bengali-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process.
Relations between India and Bangladesh soured after a 2024 revolution in Dhaka ended the autocratic rule of then-prime minister Sheikh Hasina, an ally of New Delhi, who fled to India.
