India forcibly pushing people into Bangladesh: HRW

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has expressed concern over reports that Indian authorities are forcibly pushing many ethnic Bengali residents, mostly Muslims living in West Bengal, toward Bangladesh without basic due process.

The rights group said that detaining or deporting individuals without due process constitutes a violation of fundamental human rights.

In a report released on Tuesday (16 June), HRW highlighted these concerns and called for greater adherence to legal safeguards.

“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.”

According to the report, the BGB has foiled 21 attempts by the BSF to push more than 200 people, including children, into Bangladesh’s border districts since 1 June 2026.

The rights group interviewed nine witnesses who described BSF members bringing groups of people to the border at night and pushing them through "cuts in the barbed wire fencing."

In Panchagarh, a 75-hour standoff ensued after the BSF attempted to push 10 people across on June 5. Rubel Hossen, 35, a local villager, told HRW that the group had advanced approximately 50 feet into Bangladesh before retreating to an ‘embankment in no man’s land’ after BGB forces arrived.

“What I witnessed appeared to be a war-like standoff with large deployments of BSF and BGB,” Hossen said, noting that the group was exposed to severe lightning and heavy rain during the first night.

The report documented similar incidents in Tetulbaria on June 6, involving six members of two families, and in Thakurgaon on June 8, where a pregnant mother and her child were among 11 people stranded at the zero line for nearly 48 hours.

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, following the BJP's election victory in March, stated that his government has detained hundreds of ‘Bangladeshi infiltrators’ and forced nearly 5,000 people ‘to go back’ under his ‘detect, delete and deport’ policy.

HRW highlighted that ahead of the elections, India’s election commission carried out a ‘hurried and controversial revision’ of voter lists that dropped over nine million names. An Indian activist told HRW that an estimated 400 people are currently held in holding centers at the West Bengal border, adding that the ‘exclusion from the rolls has become a trigger for arrest, detention, and expulsion.’

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has also targeted Bengali-speaking Muslims, recently stating: “We take them to a convenient location near the border, and literally push them across the border. Now, such an atmosphere has been created in Assam that several illegal Bangladeshis have started going back on their own.”

Hasibur Islam, a union council member from Panchagarh, told HRW he met a family from Siliguri who possessed Indian biometric identity documents (Aadhaar cards). Despite the oldest member having voted four times in the past, their names were dropped from the electoral rolls this year, leading to their detention and attempted expulsion.

Human Rights Watch emphasized that India is obligated under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to ensure the protection of everyone’s rights. The report stated that leaving people without food, water, or shelter may amount to ‘cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.’

The organization further noted that expelling or stranding children violates the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which obligates states to respect children’s right to preserve their nationality.

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