Assam Opposition leader raises concern about state ‘pushing back’ allegedly undocumented migrants

Assam’s Opposition leader Debabrata Saikia on Friday wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar raising concern about the state government’s recent exercise to “push back” allegedly undocumented migrants to Bangladesh.

In his letter, Saikia accused the Assam Police of carrying out the crackdown in violation of constitutional rights and due process.

The leader of the Opposition in the Assembly said that the state’s actions “appear to target Muslim communities, undermining India’s secular fabric”.

Saikia alleged in the letter that since May 23, hundreds of Indian citizens “not involved in any citizenship-related legal proceedings” had been “arbitrarily detained”.

While many have been released, the detentions highlight “serious procedural lapses”, the Nazira MLA said. In several cases, families were not informed about the whereabouts of the detainees, violating basic norms of transparency, he added.

Citing media reports, Saikia also alleged that several detainees, including women, were forcibly pushed into the no man’s land along the border between India and Bangladesh, “leaving them stateless as Bangladesh refuses to accept them”.

On May 10, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had said that several inmates of the Matia detention centre in Assam – Rohingya refugees and undocumented migrants from Bangladesh – had been “pushed back” into Bangladesh as part of a nationwide operation by the Union government.

On Friday, Sarma...

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