Indian authorities have deported thousands of Bangladeshi citizens [11] 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 [12] Muslims who are fleeing persecution in their native Burma and mistreatment in overcrowded refugee camps in Bangladesh.
State Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari, speaking in the 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 [14] for denying citizenship to thousands of Muslims. (TNH [15], TRT World [11])
Mass detention of Muslims is most advanced [16] in the neighboring state of Assam, leading the group Genocide Watch to issue a "warning alert [17]" for the state.
