Scores head to Bangladesh border amid Bengal’s migrant crackdown

SCores of people identified by authorities as undocumented east pakistani immigrants gathered nigh the edge certificate ram’s (BSF) Hakimpur check post in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district on Tuesday, apparently seeking to cross into Bangladesh, officials familiar with the matter said.The development comes days after the newly elected BJP government in West Bengal directed district magistrates to set up holding centres for undocumented immigrants before deportation, in line with its poll promise to “detect, delete and deport” illegal Bangladeshi immigrants and Rohingyas.About 100 people assembled to cross borderPolice officials said around 100 people had assembled near the border crossing by Tuesday evening.“The first wave was much bigger. Back then thousands had gathered. The second wave started on Tuesday. Till now, we have reports of only around one hundred Bangladeshis who have gathered outside the BSF check post,” a senior officer of Basirhat district police told HT.What the CM saidChief minister Suvendu Adhikari said those found to be Bangladeshi nationals should leave the country voluntarily.“They should leave. They are Bangladeshis. Their government should accept them. We have instructed the police that they shouldn’t be sent to jails. Are they our in-laws that the country would have to pay for their food, clothes and medicines? Leave at the earliest. Else the government would do what needs to be done,” Adhikari told reporters after an administrative meeting in Nadia district.Second wave of immigrantsOfficials said this is the second such wave of undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants gathering near the Hakimpur crossing point. In November 2025, thousands had assembled at the same spot after the launch of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) in the state.‘Govt pressuring us to leave’Several people waiting near the crossing told local media that they had lived and worked in different parts of West Bengal for years before deciding to return to Bangladesh.“I had come two years back. I used to stay at Dum Dum Cantonment. I came from Satkhira district in Bangladesh. If the government wants us to leave, what can we do? That’s why I am leaving,” said a Bangladeshi national who did not want to be identified.“I used to work as a mason in Barasat. I crossed over to India paying money to touts around two years back. I don’t have any documents. The government is pressuring us to leave. That’s why I am leaving,” Salim Gaji, a resident of Satkhira, told local reporters.Another woman, Nusrat Bibi, 48, from Jessore, said: “We had come to India a few years back. My husband used to work as a mason. Now we are going back. The government would have anyhow sent us back had they caught us.”Adhikari has directed police to identify undocumented Bangladeshi immigrants, detain them and hand them over to BSF for deportation.A BSF official from the South Bengal Frontier said movement towards the border had first increased in November, declined earlier this year and risen again over the past two days.