Indian Police Crackdown on Muslim Bangla-Speaking Migrants

SALEEM SAMAD

Two impoverished families have been working as scrap pickers for over two decades in the suburb of New Delhi. Both families were detained, transported in harsh conditions, and pushed into Bangladesh in the dark hours. Police in Delhi claimed that they are Bangladeshi citizens and that their ancestors were from a village in the southern district of the country.

The ordeal of the two families surfaced after their families filed cases with the Delhi High Court and Kolkata High Court. The families complained that the Indian authorities do not know of their whereabouts in Bangladesh, and the families do not have any contact with them.

The petition said that last month, Sweety Bibi and her two sons, Korban Sheikh (16 years old) and Imam Sheikh (6 years old) and another family, Sonali Khatun, her husband, Danesh Sheikh and their son Sabbir Sheikh, were abducted, and police said they were deported to Bangladesh as they were Bangladesh citizens.

Later, the West Bengal police collected several documents to prove that the family’s ancestors’ history is from the state of West Bengal and that they are genuine Indian citizens.

A video shot inside Bangladesh, which went viral on social media, showed two women, one teenager and one male, who was seen in the footage. It could not be ascertained where in Bangladesh it was recorded. The woman, Sweety Bibi, described in the video how they were forcibly abducted by police and later pushed into a foreign country and were alleged to be émigrés from Bangladesh.

In the recent spate of crackdown against illegal immigrants, India, when persons speak Bangla (the official language of Bangladesh and also spoken in neighboring states of West Bengal and Tripura) and are Muslim, that person, in the eyes of the police, is a potential demographic threat to the country’s security. The authorities jump to the conclusion that the suspects are “illegal immigrants” from Bangladesh.

All over India, such suspects in thousands were hauled and taken to different concentration camps. The detained persons are enduring untold miseries, agony and sufferings. They are tortured by law enforcement agencies. The encampments have poor sanitation, no running water and inadequate food.

Indian press, which habitually barks anti-Bangladesh rhetoric, hardly reported the incidents of the harassment and illegal confinement of Indian citizens, bracketed as “unauthorized immigrants” from Bangladesh. Most of them live in shanty slums and work as menial workers and have migrated from different places for a better future and financial solvency.

According to international media and rights organizations, they have been critical of such government-induced crackdown against the working class in India. Most do not have proper documents to prove their identity. Even though they had valid citizenship documents, they had those confiscated and were told that the documents were counterfeit.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), a New York-based organization, said India forcibly expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between 7 May and 15 June, quoting Bangladeshi authorities. The police, while detaining the suspects, speak of harrowing tales of being robbed of their cash and valuables, the poor people possessed. For the detained Muslims, the sky seems to have fallen over their head.

India is one of the few South Asia countries where secularism, equality and rights of citizens are guaranteed in the state constitution, but the government and law enforcement authorities are flouting the law with impunity during the arbitrary crackdown on illegal immigrants.

The suspects are forcibly boarded on a train or trucks and brought near the India-Bangladesh border. They are pushed through porous borders into Bangladesh. Such “push-in” as it is popularly said on both sides of the border has become a regular phenomenon of the Indian Border Security Forces (BSF).

Bangladesh is encircled by India on three sides by land, and has seen relations with New Delhi turn icy since a mass uprising in August last year toppled the autocratic government of Sheikh Hasina, an ally of India, who is living in exile somewhere in New Delhi.

Bangladesh’s Foreign Ministry has repeatedly communicated with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to abide by international laws for deporting illegal immigrants. The standard procedure would be to produce a list of names, photos, addresses in Bangladesh, and documents to prove they are from Bangladesh.

Bangladesh authorities would verify their citizenship and decide who could be sent back. Meanwhile, some Arab countries, Malaysia, South Korea, the United States and other countries have provided documents of those deported for illegally staying in their country and are undocumented. They are listed when their work permit and visas expired long ago, or they were involved in heinous crimes and given long-term prison sentences. The criminals are sent back to serve the rest of their imprisonment tenure in their home country.

Political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad aptly said thousands of senior and junior leaders of Awami League, which ruled Bangladesh for more than 15 years, have fled to India, but they are not arrested for illegally crossing the border to India without valid travel documents.

The Indian government has kept its eyes closed to exiled politicians. The political leaders are mostly living in Kolkata and New Delhi at the behest of the Indian authorities. The majority of the Awami League leaders are Muslims and speak Bangla, but they are exempted from the crackdown, Ahmad remarked.

South Block in New Delhi remains silent over the pressing issue. Every week, the Indian border police are pushing so-called unauthorized immigrants into Bangladesh. The Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) is not at all informed of the push-in. The operation is secretly conducted and in the cover of darkness by the BSF.

Despite the arbitrary deportation of “illegal immigrants” including Indian citizens, embargo on exports to India, moratorium on visas for Bangladesh nationals, and other pressing issues, Foreign Affairs Adviser Touhid Hossain last week reiterated that the interim government always wanted a good working relationship with India based on reciprocity and mutual respect. Our (Bangladesh) position remains unchanged,” Hossain said, noting that no one from the interim government ever said they do not want good relations with India.

Meanwhile, HRW in a strongly worded statement recently said India has pushed hundreds of ethnic Bangla-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process, accusing the government of flouting rules and fuelling bias on religious lines.

The Hindu nationalist government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has long taken a hard-line stance on immigration, particularly those from neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh, with top authorities referring to them as “termites” and “infiltrators”.

The crackdown has sparked fear among India’s estimated 200 million Muslims, especially among those speaking Bangla, the HRW statement said. “India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is fuelling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bangla-speaking Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia Director of HRW.

“The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorized immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims.” India has also been accused of forcibly deporting Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, with navy ships dropping them off the coast of the war-torn nation.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 29 July 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with the Reporters Without Borders. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@gmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Bangladesh’s “Mango Diplomacy” to Sweeten Relations With India

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladeshi authorities are aware that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is a strict vegan, but he has a particular fondness for mangoes. Modi has a craving for mangoes of Bengal (now a territory of Bangladesh). He cuts mangoes himself when he consumes them as dessert. He once told an actor when the celebrity asked how he ate mangoes.

The Chief Adviser of the Interim Government, Prof. Muhammad Yunus, sent 1,000 kilograms (approximately one ton) of the most delicious mango variety, “Haribhanga,” to New Delhi last week.

The mangoes are expected to be shared with dignitaries from the Indian Prime Minister’s Office, diplomats, and other officials within the next couple of days as part of a friendly exchange between the two neighboring countries, wrote a private news service, United News of Bangladesh (UNB).

Yunus’ government has initiated ‘mango diplomacy’ with India, weeks after the Foreign Ministry said New Delhi was willing to discuss all issues with Dhaka in a “conducive” environment. Yunus has also sent 300 kg of mangoes each to the neighboring states of West Bengal’s Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Tripura’s Chief Minister Manik Saha.

Bangladesh has a long-standing tradition of sending seasonal gifts, particularly mangoes, to the Indian PM and state leaders to reinforce cultural ties and regional diplomacy. This form of extending a gesture, often referred to as “mango diplomacy,” was also practiced under the previous administration of Sheikh Hasina, and it continues to serve as a symbol of goodwill and exchange, reports The Times of India.

Will the mango diplomacy likely thaw the strained relations after Delhi’s all-weather friend, Sheikh Hasina, was toppled and she sought refuge in a secure location, possibly in Delhi? The question among diplomatic circles is whether the mango diplomacy will reinforce cultural ties and regional diplomacy. Most of the observers are sceptical about the outcome of the bilateral talks.

Modi and Yunus last met in April on the sidelines of the BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok, their first face-to-face meeting since the collapse of Bangladesh’s former autocratic regime. Prime Minister Modi reiterated India’s support for a democratic, stable, peaceful, progressive, and inclusive Bangladesh. He also underlined that India believed in a people-centric approach to the relationship, and highlighted the cooperation between the two countries over a long period of time that has delivered tangible benefits to people in both countries.

The practice of sending mangoes has existed since previous regimes. But the relations between Dhaka and New Delhi have been sour after former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was ousted from power last year following massive student-led demonstrations. The Hasina government has close ties with New Delhi.

However, Bangladesh’s new caretaker government chose to court China and Pakistan, fanning regional instability. Beijing has been trying for years to spread its tentacles in the Indian subcontinent. Through arms deals and loans, China is rooting its influence in Pakistan and Bangladesh, aiming to align its interests with Beijing. Amid diplomatic unrest, Bangladesh’s “Mango Diplomacy”, a form of outreach, is seen as Dhaka’s move to sweeten ties with India.

Hours after sheltering Hasina, India has imposed a blanket moratorium on visa services to Bangladeshi nationals. The visa centers are manned by skeleton staff for emergency visa formalities, like healthcare, students studying in India, and those seeking visas for a third country having their visa office in Delhi.

The moratorium has brought the direct train, buses, and border crossing for Bangladesh to several Indian destinations to a standstill. Most flights between cities of Bangladesh and India have been significantly reduced due to the lack of visas. Earlier, thousands of Bangladesh nationals visited India every day for healthcare. Now, everything has almost stopped for the patients for medical checkups and surgery. The hotel occupancy in Kolkata, Bangalore, and Chennai has reached its lowest ebb. Restaurants no longer prepare Halal food in the absence of Bangladeshi customers.

Another category of tourists was on a shopping spree and buying an expensive dress for marriage celebrations. Whereas, Bangladesh missions in Indian capital and cities have continued to issue visas, and Indian journalists receive visas on a fast track. Well, the Agartala (Tripura State) and Kolkata (West Bengal) Bangladesh missions were attacked and vandalised, alleging that Bangladesh is not doing enough to protect the Hindus. The visa section was temporarily closed in fear of further attacks.

Despite repeated assurances from Bangladesh authorities that the perpetrators involved in the attacks on Hindus were arrested and hundreds of others are on the wanted list, the Indian media did not listen to the commitment against sectarian violence. The violence has drastically reduced. However, after a brief lull, the visa section resumed in Kolkata and Agartala’s Bangladesh missions.

In 2023, India hosted approximately 2.12 million tourists from Bangladesh, making them the largest group of foreign tourists visiting India. While Kolkata is a popular destination, other cities like Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur are also frequently visited by Bangladeshi travelers. Additionally, pilgrimage sites like Ajmer Sharif and locations in the Indian northeast, Kashmir, and Ladakh were popular destinations, according to a tourist site.

Ambassador Humayun Kabir explains that the mango diplomacy will not make much headway for a reconciliation very soon. Delhi believes that the conspiracy to overthrow Hasina was masterminded with the help of the United States and China to keep India under pressure in the new geopolitical phenomenon.

Indian conspiracy theory says the USA also brought Nobel laureate Prof Yunus to power after gathering moss under the rolling stone. The conspiratorial power lobbies brought India’s arch rivals, China and Pakistan, closer to Bangladesh. In South Asia, Dhaka angered Delhi when Yunus promised to hold the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit, even if India boycotts the event.

India officially boycotted the SAARC Summit scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016. On Delhi’s instigation, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Afghanistan declined to participate, citing concerns about regional security and Pakistan’s alleged interference in their internal affairs with India. Since then, SAARC has remained dormant.

Ambassador Kabir understands that Delhi is likely to open a new chapter with Dhaka and develop the bilateral relations between the two neighboring countries, not to a new height. Delhi is waiting for the Yunus government to come to an end. A new political government will take responsibility after the much-hyped election scheduled in February next year. Let’s wait and see how Delhi reacts to the new political government, which overtly wants to develop friendship with China and wants Beijing to support their relationship.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 21 July 2025

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@gmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Is ULFA Separatist Still a Threat to Northeast India’s Sovereignty?

SALEEM SAMAD

The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), once the fiercest militants, had caused havoc in Assam, in Northeast India bordering Bangladesh. In the 1980s and 1990s, India was torn apart by a separatist movement by radicalised militants of Nagaland, Manipur, and Tripura, all bordering Bangladesh. The civil war caused deaths and forced migration for tens of thousands. Many more lost their near and dear ones in the insurrections. Thousands were victims of arbitrary detention, torture and false terrorism cases by state security agencies, while thousands more languished in prisons for years.

India blamed Bangladesh for providing shelter to separatist leaders, training camps, weapons and logistics. Dhaka was often blamed, and India claimed to have provided evidence for inciting the rebellions in the Northeast. Bangladesh, since 1975, has had military governments which were apparently hostile to India. Delhi also accused Dhaka of aiding, abetting and cross-border terrorism to separatist groups in Northeast Indian pursuing different approaches to self-determination, greater political autonomy and independence of their landlocked territory.

The other militant groups are the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN); the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB); Manipuri separatist groups, including the factions of People’s Liberation Army of Manipur (PLAM) and Tripura separatist groups, the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and All Tripura Tiger Force (ATTF).

Last week, a faction of the ULFA-Independent’s hideout in the dense hill forest of the Myanmar-China border was pounded with drone and missile attacks. ULFA-I has accused the Indian army of killing its leaders in the Myanmar camp of launching drone and missile strikes on its camps in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region, claiming the attacks killed three senior leaders and injured dozens.

The group claimed that Lieutenant General Nayan Medhi (alias Nayan Asom), a key strategist, was killed in an initial drone strike. Subsequent missile attacks, allegedly during Nayan Asom’s funeral, reportedly killed Brigadier Ganesh Lahon (alias Ganesh Asom) and Colonel Pradip Gogoi (alias Pradip Asom), with 19 cadres injured and several civilians wounded.

The Indian Army, however, has denied any involvement, raising questions about the veracity of the claims and the dynamics of insurgent activity along the volatile India-Myanmar border, French news agency AFP and Indian TV Zee News reported. Instead, the Indian security establishment has claimed that several heavily armed battle-hardened ethnic rebels of Myanmar were behind the attack on the Paresh Baruah camps.

In a series of statements, ULFA-I alleged that over 150 drones, reportedly of Israeli and French origin, targeted its Eastern Command Headquarters (ECHQ) in at least three sites shortly after midnight on July 14, the separatist group claimed. Paresh Baruah, the supremo of ULFA-I, condemned the strikes and vowed retaliation, alleging that the Myanmar Army was aware of the operation in advance.

The Indian Army swiftly rejected ULFA-I’s claims. Lieutenant Colonel Mahendra Rawat, PRO of the Defence Guwahati, told the media, “There are no inputs with the Indian Army on such an operation.” ULFA-I, a hard-line faction, was formed in 2012 by Paresh Baruah, formerly the military commander of the unified ULFA in the 1990s. He was a football player and was very popular as the goalkeeper of the Assam team.

During the Bangladesh liberation war in 1971, he was a young volunteer in refugee camps in Assam. During his volunteer tenure, he befriended several political and student leaders in exile in India. He also developed rapport with the Mukti Bahini officers, who defected from the Pakistan Army. When ULFA was formed in April 1979, Paresh Baruah liaised between the rogue Bangladesh Army officers, who had mostly served with the Mukti Bahini. He was able to negotiate with top brass in the Bangladeshi military.

Bangladesh’s spy agency, DGFI (Director General of Forces Intelligence), was deployed to provide logistics to ULFA. It was claimed in some documents that the DGFI was able to convince the Pakistan spy agency ISI, and also able to contact the Chinese Communist Party to extend military help.

The separatists intermittently received cargoes of Chinese-made AK-47s from several clandestine arms factories in South Asian countries. They were given light weapons, wireless equipment, explosives, and counterattack arsenals. Which is good enough to keep the Indian Army, the ruthless paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other security forces at bay.

It’s undeniable that ULFA leaders operated from covert headquarters in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka and were protected by the state security agency in that period. This was disclosed by the ULFA chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, in his biography after he quit the armed struggle and made peace with Indian authorities. He is presently living in a safe house in India.

The pro-talks ULFA signed a peace accord with the government in December 2023, and disbanded the militant outfit in January 2024, ending its 44-year hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. His biography depicts his entire security detail, including the minute details of the place where his children were studying in Dhaka.

Several names of security officers of Bangladesh military intelligence, who are now mostly retired or have migrated to the West, are mentioned in his biography. His biography even details how he, along with his comrades, was extradited to India by Bangladesh authorities. Indian media, however, had published and claimed that they were captured from the Bangladesh-Indian border, since their camps were mostly on the Assam-Bangladesh border. A local reporter exploring the northeast border with Assam and Arunachal had found several shelters of ULFA militants inside Bangladesh territory.

Similar forced deportations were carried out with the leaders of NLTF, NSCN, NDFB, PLAM and ATTF as their camps were dismantled, and they were forced to leave the territory in the first few years after Hasina returned to power in 2009. However, in 1986, when Sheikh Hasina became the prime minister, she failed to deport the separatist leaders due to the intransigent attitude of some powerful military officers and bureaucrats.

During the government of Begum Khaleda Zia (2001-2006), her party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), a close associate, moved the Home Affairs Ministry and the court of law to provide political asylum to the separatist leaders instead of deporting them to India.

The splinter group ULFA (I) has rejected peace talks, demands Assam’s sovereignty and vows to continue the armed struggle, while the mainstream ULFA, led by Arabinda Rajkhowa, has signed a peace accord in December 2023 with Delhi. The militant outfit was disbanded in January 2024, ending its 44-year hit-and-run guerrilla tactics. Baruah-led militant outfit, which operates from Myanmar soil and refers to the Indian Army as “colonial occupational forces”. Insurgent outfits of the Northeast have had a presence in Myanmar since the late eighties, taking advantage of the porous border and the ongoing ethnic conflict there.

Indian security agencies have repeatedly expressed concern over the use of Myanmar territory by militants for hit-and-run attacks in the Northeast. There have been instances of reported Indian military action against militants across the border on several occasions.

The Myanmar authorities are mum about the recent reported strikes by India, which either depicts a tacit nod by Yangon or an indifference due to their multiple troubles at home.

First published in the Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan, 16 July 2025 

Saleem Samad is an award-winning independent journalist based in Bangladesh. A media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. Recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at saleemsamad@hotmail.com; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad