India forces dozens of Bengali-speaking Muslims into Bangladesh

DW (English)

Rights groups in India raise the alarm about authorities rounding up and forcing dozens of Bengali-speaking Muslims across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh. Officials say these are illegal immigrants that they are pushing back to where they came from, but activists say many of them are Indians.

Transcript

00:01Shona Banu is a shell of her former self.

00:04Although she was allowed to return to her home in Assam, her brief deportation to Bangladesh

00:09haunts her.

00:10Weeks after her harrowing experience, she struggles to believe she's safe.

00:15My brain is not working.

00:17How can it work?

00:18I feel strange.

00:19Had I died, it would have been better than this torture.

00:25Banu says she was called in for what seemed like a routine check at the local police station.

00:29But she was transported overnight to a detention camp and then pushed over the border into

00:36Bangladesh.

00:37They forced us through the border fence and shoved us to the other side.

00:40They started scaring us, as if they were going to fire on us.

00:43They pushed me into knee-deep water.

00:47Banu's brother, Ashraf Ali, has been trying to support her.

00:52The ordeal to prove her Indian citizenship is not new to the family.

00:56A local tribunal declared Banu a foreigner a decade ago.

01:00We have been fighting her case in the Supreme Court for eight years.

01:05Despite this and spending so much money, they took my sister away.

01:11Anyone who has been declared a foreigner could be at risk.

01:14These are not isolated cases.

01:17In this neighbourhood alone, many people have already approached us with their documents,

01:22hoping for help.

01:23The numbers and estimates vary, but the government at one point said that as many as 150,000 residents

01:29of Assam have been declared foreigners.

01:31In a neighbouring district, the deportations have also terrorised Azimun and her husband

01:37Qadir.

01:38I'm terrified.

01:41I don't want to stay home at night.

01:45I'm losing my mind with worry.

01:47I haven't been able to sleep for many nights.

01:49I'm constantly worried.

01:50I spend the whole night worrying.

01:52Their family has also spent decades in legal battles to prove they are Indian, collecting

02:00documents and receiving notices in a language they don't understand.

02:04A year ago, Qadir had a stroke his family says was caused by stress.

02:11He breaks down in tears every time their status is discussed.

02:15My grandfather and my grandmother have papers.

02:20My father is on the citizen list.

02:22He's been on all the electoral rolls.

02:24I'm not a Bangladeshi.

02:26All my ancestors, my whole family is Assamese.

02:29I'm not a Bangladeshi.

02:31I've submitted all my documents.

02:33Still, they have made me a Bangladeshi.

02:35BJP spokesperson Kishore Padhi is sceptical of such papers.

02:41He says they can be easily forged.

02:44Bangladeshi immigrants are falsely linking their names to Indian ancestors.

02:50We have to end this.

02:52An illegal immigrant comes here and takes advantage of the gaps in our system.

02:56Threatens our political future.

02:59We cannot accept that.

03:02Upadhyay says the government will thoroughly recheck citizen lists and evict more foreigners.

03:08He claims their presence is part of a larger plot for an immigrant takeover of Assam.

03:15If they're out to kill us, hurt our politics, our culture, to dominate us, why should we protect

03:20their human rights?

03:21Why should we suffer ourselves to protect their human rights?

03:26Shah Jahan Ali disagrees.

03:28He's been working as an activist for over 15 years, helping people with the grueling process

03:34of proving their citizenship.

03:36Most of those affected are illiterate.

03:39They don't understand these official documents.

03:42And they're all in English.

03:45I've checked the documents of over 5,000 people.

03:50One by one each page.

03:52And not a single person is a Bangladeshi.

03:54But a minor spelling or date error in these documents can cause someone to be declared a

04:03foreigner.

04:04Shah Jahan says these deportations add to a clear targeting of poor Muslim families.

04:09We're going to have state elections here in Assam next year.

04:15When Hindu-Muslim polarisation happens here,

04:20it helps the BJP get more votes.

04:23The deportations have left tens of thousands of Assam residents in dread.

04:31The dread of being denied a legal process they don't understand.

04:35And of finding themselves being forced into what for most would be a foreign land.

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