Salim Jaggi is a Bangladeshi national who entered India two years ago after allegedly paying money to cross the border. Since then, he has been living and working in West Bengal without any documents. But on Tuesday, he was among hundreds of Bangladeshis who gathered at the Border Security Force’s Hakimpur checkpoint in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, hoping to leave India.
This was prompted by the newly formed BJP government in West Bengal directing district magistrates to set up detention centers for illegal migrants before deporting them, in line with its election promise to “detect, delete and deport” illegal Bangladeshi migrants and Rohingya.
Read also | Dozens head to the Bangladesh border amid Bengal’s crackdown on migrants
This is the second large movement of its kind of Bangladeshis returning to their country. The first was in November 2025, when the SIR exercise began in Bengal. At that time, thousands of Bangladeshis gathered outside Border Security Force posts, a senior officer told HT. In the past two days, the number of Bangladeshis wanting to bypass the system has increased again.
Another woman, Nusrat Bibi (48), from Jessore, said she and her husband came to India a few years ago, where he worked in construction. “Now we are going back,” she said. “The government would have sent us back anyway if they had caught us.”
“CM Suvendu does not want illegal Bangladeshis in Bengal”
The Bharatiya Janata Party had fought the Bengal elections on the promise of liberating the eastern state from illegal immigrants who crossed the border from Bangladesh. New Prime Minister Suvendu Adhikari, shortly after taking oath, emphasized that those identified as Bangladeshi nationals should leave India voluntarily.
“They must leave. They are Bangladeshis. Their government must accept them. We have instructed the police not to send them to prisons. Are they our relatives whose food, clothes and medicines the country will have to pay for? Leave as soon as possible. Otherwise, the government will do what needs to be done,” Adhikari told reporters after an administrative meeting in Nadia district.
Officials were quickly instructed to follow orders. Border checkpoints are now witnessing hundreds of Bangladeshis, who have worked for years in different parts of Bengal, preparing to return to their country of origin.
(With inputs from Joydeep Thakur)
