India: West Bengal deportations raise human rights concerns
The reported deportation of nearly 5,000 undocumented Bangladeshi nationals from India's West Bengal state, which borders Bangladesh, has become the first major test of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) promise to "detect, delete and deport" after its landslide election v
The reported deportation of nearly 5,000 undocumented Bangladeshi nationals from India's West Bengal state, which borders Bangladesh, has become the first major test of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) promise to "detect, delete and deport" after its landslide election victory in the state last month.
Just weeks after the vote, authorities ordered districts to set up holding centers for undocumented Bangladeshis and ethnic minority Rohingyas awaiting verification and deportation.
According to West Bengal's chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, around 4,800 people have already been sent across the border, while another 836 remain in custody.
Illegal immigration from neighboring Bangladesh has long been one of eastern India's most potent mobilizing political issues for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu nationalist BJP .
BJP leaders argue that decades of unchecked migration have altered demographics , distorted electoral rolls, strained welfare resources and created security concerns.
"The government of India has decided that not only will we stop infiltration, but we will find each and every infiltrator and send them out of the country," said India's Home Minister Amit Shah.
Shah added that the government would make the Bangladesh and Pakistan borders "impenetrable" to defeat what he called a "conspiracy to change the demography of the country."
More than half of India's 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) border with Bangladesh runs through West Bengal . For years, BJP leaders accused the previous All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) government of turning a blind eye to illegal migration for electoral gain.
