West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has ordered police to hand over detained infiltrators directly to the Border Security Force, marking a sharp administrative shift in the state’s handling of illegal cross-border movement from Bangladesh.
Adhikari announced the mechanism at the state secretariat, Nabanna, on Wednesday, saying people identified as infiltrators and found outside the protection of the Citizenship Act would be transferred to BSF border outposts rather than being routed through the usual court and jail process. The measure, he said, forms part of a wider “detect, delete and deport” framework aimed at identifying undocumented migrants, removing ineligible names from official records and expediting deportation in coordination with border authorities.
The chief minister said detainees would be handed to the BSF for further action with Border Guards Bangladesh. He also directed that weekly reports on such cases be submitted to the Chief Minister’s Office through the Director General of Police, signalling close political supervision of a policy likely to become a defining issue for his new administration.
Adhikari said the Centre had sent a communication to the state on May 14 last year on direct handover of infiltrators to the BSF, but the previous government did not implement the provision. His administration has now moved to activate it, alongside the transfer of land to the BSF for border fencing in sensitive stretches along the Bangladesh frontier.
West Bengal shares a 2,216-km border with Bangladesh, much of it passing through riverine, densely populated and agrarian belts where demarcation, fencing and surveillance have long posed operational challenges. Districts such as North 24 Parganas, Nadia, Murshidabad, Malda and Cooch Behar have remained central to debates over migration, trafficking, smuggling and border management. The state’s proximity to Bangladesh has made immigration enforcement a recurring political flashpoint, with rival parties differing sharply over security, citizenship and minority rights.
The new policy draws a distinction between undocumented entrants covered by the Citizenship Act and those outside its scope. The law offers a route to citizenship for Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who entered the country on or before December 31, 2014, after facing religious persecution. Muslim migrants from those countries do not fall within the law’s protection, a provision that has remained politically and legally contentious since its passage.
Adhikari has sought to frame the mechanism as a security and administrative measure rather than a communal exercise. Bengal BJP president Samik Bhattacharya said Muslims who are citizens were not the target and that no detention camps would be set up. The administration’s public position is that the action applies to illegal infiltrators, not lawful residents or citizens belonging to any community.
Opposition parties and civil liberties groups are likely to scrutinise the policy closely, especially over identification standards, access to legal remedies and safeguards against wrongful detention. Deportation proceedings involving suspected foreigners have traditionally required documentation, verification and coordination between Union agencies and foreign authorities. Any attempt to bypass judicial scrutiny could face questions over due process, particularly if detainees claim citizenship, long-term residence or family links within the state.
The practical impact of the order will depend on how police establish nationality and entry status before handing over detainees to the BSF. Border districts often include families with cross-border linguistic, cultural and kinship ties, complicating field-level determinations. Officials will also need to ensure that voter identity cards, Aadhaar, ration cards or other documents are verified through proper channels before any person is treated as an infiltrator.
For the BSF, the mechanism could add to existing responsibilities that include border guarding, anti-smuggling operations, fencing support, surveillance and coordination with Bangladesh’s border force. Direct handover may accelerate administrative processing in some cases, but deportation itself requires acceptance by the receiving country, making bilateral coordination central to outcomes on the ground.
