The loudspeaker crackled across the paddy fields of Brahmanbaria as dusk settled over the border villages.
Residents were being warned to stay alert. Do not shelter strangers. Report suspicious movement. Watch the riverbanks and char land.
On the other side of the border fence, in Tripura and Bengal, a crackdown on suspected undocumented migrants was accelerating. Along parts of the Bangladesh frontier, officials feared that those caught in the dragnet would not necessarily arrive through formal repatriation channels. They might simply be pushed across.
“We have started miking in border villages to raise awareness among residents and ask them to stay vigilant against any illegal crossings or push-in attempts,” Lieutenant Colonel S.M. Shariful Islam, commander of Border Guard Bangladesh’s (BGB) 60 Battalion, told Reuters. Border patrols and surveillance, he said, had been intensified amid concern over forced crossings from India.
For Bangladesh, the warnings reflect a growing fear that a long-running political issue in India is now entering a more aggressive phase.
The immediate concern is not migration itself. Cross-border migration between India and Bangladesh has existed for decades, shaped by history, Partition, family ties, labour markets and porous stretches of a 4,000km frontier.
The concern is what Bangladeshi officials, rights groups and analysts describe as an increasing pattern of “push-ins” — the informal transfer of people into Bangladesh without completing established verification and repatriation procedures.
One recent case illustrates the complexity.
In March, Bangladeshi authorities in Chuadanga recovered 14 people who said they had been pushed into Bangladesh by the Border Security Force. According to the daily Prothom Alo, the group claimed they were residents of Odisha, not Bangladesh.
They alleged that Indian police had detained them, confiscated identity documents, including Aadhaar and ration cards, held them in custody and eventually forced them across the border.
Their story is not unique. According to BGB data, 2,479 people were pushed into Bangladesh from India over eight months starting from May last year. Bangladeshi border authorities repeatedly protested what they described as violations of bilateral border management agreements and international human rights norms.
The issue has acquired fresh urgency following political changes in eastern India.
For years, immigration from Bangladesh has occupied a central place in the BJP’s ideological framework. In Assam, the issue shaped the process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). Across several northeastern states, political campaigns have frequently framed undocumented migration as a demographic and security threat.
But analysts argue that the BJP’s consolidation of power across the country’s eastern border states has altered the equation.
“The BJP’s victory in Bengal removes the institutional friction that once slowed New Delhi’s anti-migration agenda,” Shahab Enam Khan, professor of international relations, told The Telegraph. “India is moving from a fragmented system to unified enforcement — and Bangladesh’s political community will bear the cost.”
The shift is visible on the ground. In recent weeks, Bengal authorities established multiple holding centres for suspected undocumented migrants. One facility in Malda was opened under the state’s “detect-delete-deport” initiative.
Several additional centres have since been established across North 24-Parganas, Murshidabad and Nadia districts. Indian media reports indicate that more than 380 detainees are currently being held while citizenship verification is conducted.
The political messaging has become increasingly explicit. Home minister Amit Shah recently declared that undocumented Bangladeshis living in Bengal would not face prosecution if they voluntarily returned to Bangladesh. BJP leaders in the state have publicly urged alleged undocumented migrants to leave before enforcement intensifies.
The rhetoric has produced visible anxiety.
At Hakimpur, near the India-Bangladesh border, hundreds of people gathered, hoping to cross into Bangladesh before detention or deportation proceedings could begin. AFP reported families sleeping in unfinished buildings, uncertain whether Bangladesh would accept them and unable to prove citizenship on either side of the border.
Among them was 20-year-old Abdul Sheikh, who told AFP he was born in Calcutta after his parents migrated decades ago. “My parents came to India from Bangladesh over two decades ago. I was born in Calcutta, but I don’t have valid documents to prove my nationality,” he said. “All my hopes are dashed.”
The external affairs ministry recently disclosed that New Delhi had shared the names of more than 2,680 individuals with Bangladesh for nationality verification. According to ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, some of those cases have remained unresolved for more than five years. India maintains that deportation can proceed only after Bangladesh confirms nationality.
Other reports place the number of pending verification requests at approximately 2,860.
For Bangladesh, these figures reveal a central contradiction. Dhaka has repeatedly stated that it will accept verified Bangladeshi nationals through formal channels. What it opposes are unilateral pushbacks that bypass verification procedures altogether.
Attempts to reach Bangladesh home minister Salahuddin Ahmed for comment on the matter were unsuccessful.
Human rights organisations have repeatedly alleged that some individuals expelled from India were Indian citizens or people whose nationality had never been conclusively established. Human Rights Watch previously accused Indian authorities of forcibly expelling hundreds of ethnic Bengali Muslims without due process.
An Amnesty International report examining citizenship and detention policies in India similarly warned that documentation-based exclusion could create large populations vulnerable to statelessness and arbitrary detention.
That concern is now becoming increasingly central to discussions in Bangladesh.
“Bypassing courts to avoid ‘hassles’ is an admission that the legal case can be weak — and that’s a human rights problem,” Shahab Enam Khan said. “Bangladesh is being asked to accept people that New Delhi cannot verify as citizens, while the government machinery in Delhi or Calcutta avoids its own legal procedures. That’s not burden-sharing; that’s externalising political failure.”
He argued that the broader political context cannot be ignored.
“Perhaps the real danger isn’t deportations themselves; it’s that migration and hyper-narratives are tools for political consolidation in Bengal and beyond.”
Jawhar Sircar, a former IAS officer and former Rajya Sabha member, sees the issue through a similar political lens.
“Illegal immigration has always been a core issue with the BJP, and they apply this term only to Muslims,” he said. “Hindu immigrants without documents are treated separately as refugees.”
Sircar argued that migration has increasingly become intertwined with identity politics in eastern India.
“This way, attention can be diverted from real economic and employment problems of Bengal to other passion-based distractions,” he said.
The consequences, he warned, may extend beyond border management. “Bangladesh may not accept everyone pushed back unless they are absolutely certain about their status,” he said.
His concern is that immigration politics on one side of the border can easily generate nationalist reactions on the other.
“Communal elements on both sides feed on each other and will not be satisfied until their myopic aggression is able to divide the Bengali-speaking people into bitter adversaries,” he added.
That risk is already becoming visible in diplomatic exchanges.
Bangladesh has formally protested unilateral push-ins and strengthened surveillance operations across several border sectors. The BGB said intelligence monitoring, patrol operations and local awareness campaigns have all been expanded.
The frontier itself remains extraordinarily difficult to police.
The India-Bangladesh border stretches for more than 4,000km, making it one of the world’s longest land boundaries. Large sections pass through rivers, agricultural land and densely populated settlements. In some areas, crossing a river under the cover of darkness remains easier than crossing an urban street.
That geography has always complicated migration politics. Now it is complicating what analysts dubbed “deportation politics”.