India must stop expulsion of Indian Muslims, Rohingyas

The Indian government must immediately end its unlawful campaign of expulsion against Indian Muslim citizens and Rohingya refugees, said Fortify Rights.

The move comes as the Indian authorities in recent months have been arbitrarily arresting, detaining, torturing and coercively removing members of Muslim minorities -- including those with valid documentation or citizenship -- as well as Rohingya refugees as part of its intensified "illegal immigrant" verification campaign.

"These actions not only violate international human rights law but deepen the dangerous marginalisation of Muslims and refugees in India," said John Quinley, director at Fortify Rights, in a statement yesterday.

Since the Indian home ministry issued a directive in May mandating all states and union territories to verify the credentials of individuals suspected to be "illegal immigrants", mass raids and forced expulsions of Indian Muslims and returns of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh and Myanmar have intensified, the statement said.

Since May 7, more than 1,800 people have been forced into Bangladesh from India, Fortify Rights said citing Bangladesh government data.

Indian officials reported that more than 2,000 have been sent to Bangladesh, it said.

In the statement, the rights body said it had documented torture and ill-treatment during India's arrest and expulsion campaign from May to July, speaking with 16 individuals -- including Muslim residents in the states of Assam and Gujarat, Rohingya refugees in India, relatives of detainees, an Indian lawyer and a Bangladeshi police officer at the border.

The statement detailed the plight of a 50-year-old Indian Muslim detained at Matia Transit Camp, India's largest detention facility for irregular migrants and refugees in Assam's Goalpara district.

"On May 23, I was asked to report to the Mikirbheta police station at 11 pm. As soon as I arrived, I was detained. I kept screaming that I was born and raised in India, that I am a government teacher, and that I had already served time in a detention camp for two years from 2018 to 2020."

He spent at least a couple of days in the camp before being taken to a military camp of the Border Security Force (BSF).

On the night of May 26, a group of 14 people, including him, were driven overnight by the BSF through the jungle and waterways and left in no man's land on the India–Bangladesh border.

"My hands were tied, and I was blindfolded. The BSF fired rubber bullets at us while we were in no man's land, just to force us to the other side [into Bangladesh]. I never thought that I would be made a foreigner in my own country," he said.

Four days later, with support from his relatives in India, the man negotiated with the Indian authorities to be allowed back into Assam state due to a pending Supreme Court petition filed in December 2024 related to his family's citizenship.

Another Indian Muslim resident of Assam told Fortify Rights how her father was taken into Indian police custody and later forced into Bangladesh on May 23.

"My father was called a Bangladeshi all his life, but that he would be sent to Bangladesh was unimaginable. We are Indians. We are being thrown out of our country. Why was my father sent to Bangladesh when he had all the documents [proving his Indian citizenship]?"

Her father was, however, intercepted by Bangladeshi border guard forces and sent back to India, the reports said.

The others who were expelled were reportedly transported to coastal areas and forced into the water near the maritime border of Bangladesh.

On the night of May 8, 2025, speedboats pushed them into the sea and forced them to swim ashore, the reports said quoting a Bangladeshi police officer who received a group of more than 70 people pushed by the Indian authorities into Bangladesh.

Rohingya refugees are also being detained and sent to Bangladesh, said the Fortify Rights statement.

"India is stripping Indian Muslim citizens and Rohingya refugees of their rights. Despite its obligations under international law, India continues to violate these commitments through a series of disturbing official laws and policies tinged with ethno-religious supremacism," Quinley said.