India has pushed hundreds of ethnic Bengali-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh without due process, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday, 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 hardline stance on immigration — particularly those from neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh — with top authorities referring to them as “termites” and “infiltrators”.
HRW, a New York-based nonprofit, said India forcibly expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between May 7 and June 15, quoting Bangladeshi authorities. “India’s ruling BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is fuelling discrimination by arbitrarily expelling Bengali Muslims from the country, including Indian citizens,” Elaine Pearson, Asia director at the nonprofit, said.
“The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims.” Claims by authorities that the expulsions were to manage illegal immigration were “unconvincing”, Pearson added, because of “their disregard for due process rights, domestic guarantees, and international human rights standards”.
HRW said it had sent the report’s findings and questions to the country’s home ministry but had received no response.
A 51-year-old daily wage worker told HRW that he “walked into Bangladesh like a dead body” after India’s Border Security Force (BSF) took him to the border after midnight. “I thought they (the BSF) would kill me because they were holding guns and no one from my family would know,” the report quotes the worker as saying. India also ramped up operations against migrants in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
“The government is undercutting India’s long history of providing refuge to the persecuted as it tries to generate political support,” Pearson said.
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.
