Bengali-speaking Muslims targeted in midnight raids despite Indian documents
Detentions raise fresh concerns over citizenship rights and anti-Muslim discrimination
Kolkata: Amid an intensified crackdown that has disproportionately targeted Muslims, authorities in BJP-ruled West Bengal have detained nearly a dozen Muslims during midnight raids on suspicion that they are Bangladeshis.
According to Kashmir Media Service, at least nine Muslim men and two children have been detained since June, mostly in Muslim-majority Murshidabad district, and sent to detention centers without being given an opportunity to establish their Indian citizenship, Indian news outlet scroll.in reported.
Families of those detained said their relatives had effectively disappeared. They said that police frequently arrived at night without producing warrants, arrest records or copies of criminal complaints.
Several detainees possessed voter cards, land records, government documents or other evidence that their families said established longstanding ties to India. At least four had also cleared India’s recent electoral-roll verification exercise, known as the Special Intensive Revision (SIR).
One of them, 61-year-old Ibrahim Sheikh, was taken from his home in Murshidabad after police officers demanded his documents and asked whether he was Indian or Bangladeshi. His daughter-in-law, Parbin Khatun, said Sheikh showed the officers his Aadhaar card and voter card but was taken away anyway. His family later presented police with additional records, including pension papers and a land title, but said they were neither allowed to meet him nor told where he was being held.
“The police have just disappeared him,” Khatun said.
She said that officers also made explicitly anti-Muslim remarks during raid, telling her that Hindus would be kept “close to our heart” while Muslims belonged “under our feet,” and that even Hindus arriving from Bangladesh could be made Indian.
In another case, 67-year-old Jalil Akhtar was taken while sleeping outside his home despite appearing on electoral rolls following citizenship-related voter scrutiny.
Abdul Jabbar was taken from another home in Murshidabad along with his sons, aged eight and six. His family said he possesses an Indian passport, voter card and Indian birth certificate and had voted after clearing recent electoral verification process.
Human rights advocates have raised alarm, saying that holding people without judicial oversight or giving them an opportunity to establish their citizenship violates constitutional protections.
“This is not a police state,” rights activist Kirity Roy said. “Detaining any person, treating them as a Bangladeshi, and pushing them back without any investigation is illegal.”
Families and lawyers are challenging several cases in court as concerns grow that Bengali-speaking Muslims could be stripped of basic legal protections under a citizenship drive that distinguishes between Muslim and non-Muslim migrants.
Notably, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari said in May that suspected Bangladeshi “infiltrators” could be handed directly to Border Security Force (BSF) for deportation rather than first being produced before courts, while explicitly exempting Hindu migrants eligible for citizenship under India’s controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The CAA provides a pathway to citizenship for undocumented migrants belonging to six non-Muslim religious communities from neighboring Muslim-majority countries, but excluding Muslims. Critics have condemned the legislation as discriminatory, arguing that it differentiates among migrants on the basis of religion.
