Indian authorities have forcibly expelled hundreds of ethnic Bengali Muslims—many of them Indian citizens from border states—to Bangladesh in recent weeks without due process, labeling them “illegal immigrants,” Human Rights Watch alleged on Wednesday.
“India’s ruling BJP is fueling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.
“The authorities’ claims that they are managing irregular immigration are unconvincing given their disregard for due process rights, domestic guarantees, and international human rights standards.”
Human Rights Watch said that it interviewed 18 people in June, including affected individuals and family members in 9 cases. “Those interviewed include Indian citizens who returned to India after being expelled to Bangladesh and family members of those who were detained and are still missing.”
On 8 July, HRW wrote to India’s Ministry of Home Affairs with our findings but received no response, it said.
“The Indian government has provided no official data on the number of people expelled, but Border Guard Bangladesh has reported that India expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between May 7 and June 15, including about 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar. The expulsions have continued,” read HRW’s press release.
Since May 2025, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led governments have intensified operations to expel ethnic Bengali Muslims to Bangladesh, ostensibly to deter people from entering India without legal authorization.
“The government should stop unlawfully deporting people without due process and instead ensure everyone’s access to procedural safeguards to protect against arbitrary detention and expulsion,” said the rights watchdog.
It went on to say: “Authorities in the BJP-run states of Assam, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Odisha, and Rajasthan have rounded up Muslims, mostly impoverished migrant workers, and turned them over to Indian border guards. In some cases, the border guards allegedly threatened and beat the detainees to force them to cross into Bangladesh without adequately verifying their citizenship claims. The Indian government has had to readmit dozens of people who eventually proved their Indian citizenship.”
The crackdown followed a deadly attack by gunmen against tourists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April, HRW noted.
In May, Indian authorities also expelled about 100 Rohingya refugees from a detention center in Assam across the Bangladesh border. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) reported that the authorities forced another 40 Rohingya refugees into the sea near Myanmar, giving them life jackets and making them swim to shore in what the UN special rapporteur on Myanmar, Tom Andrews, called “an affront to human decency.
Andrews said the incident was also “a serious violation” of the principle of nonrefoulement, the international legal prohibition against returning people to a territory where they face threats to their lives or freedom.
Supreme Court of India refused in early May to block deportations of Rohingya refugees, saying that if they are found to be foreigners under Indian law, they must be deported. On May 16, in response to the account of Rohingya forced into the sea, the court said there was no evidence to support these allegations, claiming this was a “beautifully crafted story.”
“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,” Pearson said. “The government is undercutting India’s long history of providing refuge to the persecuted as it tries to generate political support.”
HRW also accused several BJP-ruled states of intensifying their crackdown on Bengali Muslim migrant workers, many of whom live in poverty, without first verifying their citizenship status.
The West Bengal chief minister has called out BJP state governments, saying “Is speaking Bengali a crime? You should be ashamed that by doing this, you’re making everyone who speaks Bengali appear to be Bangladeshi.”
