India prepares mass detention of Rohingya
Indian authorities have deported thousands of Bangladeshi citizens in the month since Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won elections in the state of West Bengal. Shortly after taking power in West Bengal, BJP officials ordered the creation of detention centers both for undocumented Bangladeshis and Rohingya Muslims who are fleeing persecution in their native Burma and mistreatment in overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh.
West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, speaking in state capital Kolkata on June 8, said nearly 5,000 Bangladeshi citizens had been deported across the border. "We have started the work of deporting Bangladeshi infiltrators who do not fall under the purview of the Citizenship Amendment Act," Adhikari said, refering to the 2019 national law that has been assailed for denying citizenship to thousands of Muslims. (TNH, TRT World)
Mass detention of Muslims on questionable immigration grounds is most advanced in the neighboring state of Assam, leading the group Genocide Watch to issue a "warning alert" for India.
Millions disenfranchised in West Bengal
Millions in India's West Bengal risk losing food rations and welfare benefits after the state government removed more than nine million names from voter rolls. Leaders of the Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party said the deletions targeted deceased people, "infiltrators" and "illegal" Bangladeshi migrants. Researchers have found that Muslims have been disproportionately affected. More than 2 million deleted people have been allowed to keep their benefits pending appeals. Critics have warned that the process is part of a larger effort to strip Indian Muslims of political rights. (TNH)