India ‘pushing into’ ethnic Bengalis to Bangladesh without due process: Human Rights Watch

Indian authorities have forcibly expelled ethnic Bengali residents, mostly Muslims from West Bengal, to Bangladesh without due process, leaving dozens of families stranded along the border, according to international rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a statement on Tuesday, HRW said actions by India’s Border Security Force (BSF), coupled with efforts by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) to prevent unauthorised entry, had left families trapped at the “zero line” between the two countries.

According to Bangladeshi border guards, since Jun 1, 2026, they have thwarted 21 attempts by the BSF to push more than 200 people, including children, into Bangladesh through border districts.

The chief minister of India’s West Bengal state Suvendu Adhikari, who took office after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the March elections, said his government’s “detect, delete and deport” policy had led to the detention of hundreds of alleged “Bangladeshi infiltrators” and forced nearly 5,000 people “to go back”.

“Indian authorities are cruelly dumping families into Bangladesh or leaving them stranded at the border, ignoring their basic human rights,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at HRW.

“The government should stop unlawfully expelling people, ensure procedural safeguards, engage with Bangladeshi authorities to verify citizenship, and end this dismaying animosity toward Muslims,” she said.

HRW said it interviewed nine people who witnessed BSF personnel escorting groups to the border at night and pushing them through cuts in barbed-wire fencing into Bangladeshi territory.

In several instances, the BSF later allowed the individuals to return after BGB personnel denied them entry, it said.

In Bangladesh’s northern Panchagarh district, witnesses described a 75-hour standoff after the BSF attempted to push 10 people, including children, into Bangladesh on Jun 5.

“The group had advanced approximately 50 feet inside Bangladeshi territory,” said Rubel Hossen, a local resident.

He said villagers alerted the BGB, prompting a confrontation that left the group stranded on an embankment in no man’s land.

According to Rubel, those stranded endured severe lightning and heavy rain during the first night and received only limited food from Indian border forces on the second day.

“What I witnessed appeared to be a war-like standoff with large deployments of BSF and BGB,” he said, adding that repeated flag meetings failed before the BSF eventually escorted the group back.

HRW also cited an incident on Jun 6 when six members of two Bengali Muslim families, including three men, two women and a child, were pushed toward the Tetulbaria border.

While the BGB prevented their entry into Bangladesh, BSF personnel allegedly stopped them from returning to India.

The families spent a night in the open before being allowed back.

On Jun 8, BGB said the BSF took back 11 people, including a pregnant woman and her child, after they had spent nearly 48 hours stranded at the zero line in Thakurgaon district.

The rights organisation said the incidents came amid concerns over citizenship verification and voter registration in India.

Before the March elections in West Bengal, India’s Election Commission revised voter rolls, removing more than nine million names, a move that triggered concerns over detention and deportation.

The HRW noted that a citizenship verification exercise in Assam in 2019 had left more than 1.9 million people stateless.

Thousands of Bengali-speaking residents have since been held in detention centres, while others were allegedly expelled unlawfully.

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has repeatedly referred to Bengali-speaking Muslims as “illegal immigrants”.

HRW cited a recent statement in which he said authorities take people “to a convenient location near the border, and literally push them across the border”.

Hasibur Islam, a union council member from Panchagarh Sadar, told HRW that he met a family from Siliguri in West Bengal who possessed Aadhaar identity cards but had been detained after their names were removed from electoral rolls.

“The oldest member of the family has voted four times,” Islam said. “This year, none of them were able to vote.”

The family was eventually allowed to return to India after spending three days stranded at the border.

Indian authorities maintain that many Bangladeshis are living in India illegally and have offered assistance for voluntary return.

HRW said genuinely voluntary repatriation is compatible with international human rights standards but argued that coercive repatriation and forced expulsions violate those standards.

The organisation also cited allegations that some individuals had been stripped of documents, money and personal belongings.

According to an Indian activist quoted in the report, around 400 people are currently being held in detention centres in border areas of West Bengal. Most are Muslims, although some are Hindus.

The activist said exclusion from voter rolls had become “a trigger for arrest, detention, and expulsion and a source of pervasive fear”.

Bangladeshi authorities have said they will not accept people pushed across the border outside established legal procedures and insist that any repatriation must follow proper verification processes.

The HRW said India is obligated under international human rights treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, to protect the rights of all individuals and prevent deprivation of citizenship based on ethnicity, descent or national origin.

The organisation said detention and expulsion without due process violate fundamental rights, while leaving people without food, water, shelter or medical care could amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

It urged India to ensure access to procedural safeguards, including information on deportation grounds, legal representation and opportunities to appeal.

The HRW also said expelling or stranding children violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects children’s nationality rights and prohibits arbitrary deprivation of liberty.

The rights group noted that India and Bangladesh already have bilateral mechanisms for nationality verification and repatriation, and said bypassing those procedures had repeatedly left people trapped between border forces.

“No one, whatever their nationality, should be left to spend nights in an open field between two lines of armed border guards,” HRW’s Meenakshi said.

“India should end these brutal expulsions, and both governments should ensure that border management never again comes at the cost of basic human dignity,” she added.