Bangladesh says India pushes back 1,200 people

Dhaka: Bangladesh said Wednesday that neighbouring India has pushed more than 1,270 people across its border in the past month, mainly Bangladeshis, but also Indian citizens and Rohingya refugees.

Bangladesh, largely encircled by land by India, has seen relations with New Delhi turn icy since a mass uprising toppled Dhaka’s previous government last year.

“Between May 7 and June 3, Indian authorities pushed in 1,272 individuals, including a few Indian citizens and Rohingya, through 19 bordering districts”, Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) officials said.

“Only yesterday, they pushed 50 individuals.”

India’s Hindu nationalist government has often described undocumented immigrants as “Muslim infiltrators”, accusing them of posing a security threat.

India has not commented on the recent returns across their shared border.

Bangladeshi Jahidul Molla, 21, said he was among those sent back, saying he had been living in India´s western state of Gujarat since he was 14.

“They picked us up from home and put us on a plane,” Molla told AFP, adding that after two weeks in a camp, he was then taken onboard a ship, along with more than 50 others, almost all men.

“For the next three days, they kept beating us, and we were starving”, reporting that they were then dropped overboard in the mangrove swamps of the Sundarbans, which straddle the border between the nations.

“They dropped us... the coast guard rescued us and handed us over to the police”.

AFP could not independently verify his account.

India shares a long and porous border with neighbouring Muslim-majority Bangladesh.

The mostly Muslim Rohingya have been persecuted in Myanmar for decades, with many fleeing a 2017 military crackdown.

More than a million escaped to Bangladesh, but others fled to India.

The BGB official said “some of the Rohingya” were registered with the UN refugee agency in India.

Md Touhid Hossain, who heads the foreign ministry in the caretaker government, said Dhaka was “putting all our efforts” into resolving the issue through dialogue.

Indian media report that, since a four-day conflict with Pakistan last month, authorities have pushed back more than 2,000 alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

In February, Amit Shah, India´s interior minister said “the issue of illegal intruders is also related to national security, and it should be dealt with strictly”, adding that “they should be identified and deported”.