West Bengal CM Suvendu Adhikari Says Govt to Hand Over Detained Bangladeshis Directly to BSF, Not Courts

'The police commissioner and the RPF have been clearly instructed that if illegal migrants from Bangladesh, who are not entitled to apply for citizenship under the CAA, are detained at the Howrah Station, they should not be sent to a court,' West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari said.

The Wire Staff

west bengal cm suvendu adhikari says govt to hand over detained bangladeshis directly to bsf not courts

West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari chairs a cabinet meeting at Nabanna in Howrah. Photo: Handout via PTI.

New Delhi: West Bengal chief minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Thursday (May 21) that Bangladeshi nationals detained in the state as illegal migrants will be handed directly to the Border Security Force (BSF) for deportation instead of being produced before courts. He made this statement a day after he announced the transfer of a 27-km stretch of land to the BSF for long-pending fencing projects along the India-Bangladesh border and that the state police will arrest alleged illegal migrants and hand them over to the paramilitary force.

"Since yesterday, the new rule has come into effect under which infiltrators will not be sent to courts but handed over to BSF outposts at the Bangladesh border," he said, as per The New Indian Express, speaking to reporters after a meeting at the Howrah district magistrate’s office. He did not name the specific legislation enabling the move but it is reportedly a reference to the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which parliament passed in April last year. The law sets up a framework for immigration tracking, detention and deportation using technology.

The chief minister said police commissioners and the Railway Protection Force (RPF) had been briefed on the new procedure. He underlined that detained migrants would be fed and then transported to BSF posts either at the Petrapole crossing in Bongaon or at a border outpost in Basirhat, North 24 Parganas.

"The police commissioner and the RPF have been clearly instructed that if illegal migrants from Bangladesh, who are not entitled to apply for citizenship under the CAA, are detained at the Howrah Station, they should not be sent to a court. The persons concerned should be properly fed and then taken directly to the BSF personnel at the Petrapole border in Bongaon or the border outpost in Basirhat in North 24 Parganas district," Adhikari was quoted as saying by TNIE.

He added that weekly reports on detentions would be sent to the chief minister's office through the director general of police.

On Wednesday, the chief minister had underlined that the shift is part of his so-called "detect, delete and deport" approach.

This article went live on May twenty-second, two thousand twenty six, at nine minutes past five in the evening.

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