Assam has shifted its approach to dealing with Bangladeshi infiltrators, opting for direct pushbacks into Bangladesh instead of following the lengthy legal process, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Saturday.

“Infiltration is a big issue. We have now decided that we will not go through the legal process. Earlier, the approach was to arrest individuals and bring them under the Indian legal system. They would be detained, produced before a court and held in jails,” Sarma said.

He added: “We have now decided we will not bring them inside the country. We will push them back. Pushing them back is a new phenomenon. That is why you are hearing about more numbers. Otherwise, the influx remains the same — about 4,000 to 5,000 people enter every year — but with pushbacks, the numbers will drop. Pushback is a new innovation.”

The 4,096km-long India-Bangladesh border includes a 263km stretch in Assam, where the state has reportedly institutionalised a pushback system in coordination with the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB). “Our pushback is a daily affair because we have created a system where we convince the BGB that these people are about to enter,” Sarma said.

The pushback policy has gained attention recently after Bangladesh’s leading English daily, The Daily Star, reported that India had pushed back at least 123 “Rohingya and Bengali-speaking individuals” through the Kurigram and Khagrachhari border points.

A BSF source confirmed that pushbacks are taking place through the BSF’s Guwahati Frontier, though without providing further details.

Sarma said many of those previously held at the Matia transit centre in Goalpara, including declared foreigners who had served their sentences and Rohingyas, have also been pushed back. Matia, which once housed around 270 detainees, now has only 30-40 individuals with pending court cases, he said.