Leader of the Opposition in the Assam Assembly, Debabrata Saikia, on Friday wrote to external affairs minister S. Jaishankar expressing his concern over the state government’s “ongoing detention and forced pushback” of alleged illegal immigrants even as the AIUDF continued to protest against the “arbitrary” drive.

Saikia said he has highlighted several serious violations of constitutional rights and process in what is being termed as Assam’s “pushback drive”, detailing how the Assam police have since May 23 “arbitrarily detained hundreds of Indian citizens not involved in any citizenship-related legal proceedings”.

While most detainees were eventually released, their wrongful apprehension itself points to serious procedural lapses, Saikia’s statement said, adding, families remain uninformed about the whereabouts of detainees, violating basic transparency norms.

Media reports suggest that many detainees, including women, have been forcibly pushed into the no-man’s-land at the India-Bangladesh border, leaving them stateless as Bangladesh refuses to accept them.

Saikia “reminded” the minister that this action directly contradicts India’s stated position on deportation, quoting Dr. Jaishankar’s own parliamentary statement that emphasised the necessity of “unambiguous verification of nationality” before any repatriation.

The letter noted that these operations appear “to target Muslim communities”, undermining India’s secular fabric. It also points out that several cases are still pending before the Supreme Court, making these detentions and pushbacks a clear violation of the judicial process.

The Congress leader appealed for immediate intervention of the Centre to immediately halt these “unconstitutional” actions, ensure proper nationality verification before any deportation, and release all wrongly detained Indian citizens, and make detainee information publicly available.

Saikia said: “Pushing Indian citizens into no-man’s-land without verification is unconstitutional and fundamentally inhumane. The repatriation during the pendency of a Supreme Court case constitutes a grave breach of the judicial process. This further violates international human rights standards.”

The All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF) has also continued to protest against the “continued harassment of Indian Muslims in Assam” under the pretext of identifying and apprehending “so-called illegal foreigners”.

The party staged protests in two Assembly constituencies in Dhubri district against the “arbitrary” drive.