Location and expulsion of Muslims in Bangladesh precede Indian government polls

Goalpara: Under a sea of blue canvas in a corner of northeast India near Bangladesh, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies take refuge after being expelled from their homes, in the latest repression at Assam before state elections.

They are among thousands of families whose houses have been bulldozing in recent weeks by the authorities – the most intense such action for decades – who have accused them of remaining illegally on government land.

Demolitions at Assam, where the Hindu party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek re-election early next year, coincided with a national engagement in Bengali speaking Muslims who characterize “illegal infiltrators” by Baglades from Baglades. Dhaka.

“Our government is harassing us repeatedly,” said Aran Ali, 53, speaking outside a piece of naked land in the Assam Goalpara area that has become the improvised home for his three family.

“We are accused of being tangers and foreigners,” said Ali, who was born in Assam, as the hot July Sun hit the settlement.

Assam represents 262 km from India border 4097 kilometers with Bangladesh and has long struggled with anti-immigrant emotions that have fears roots that the Bangali-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-of-hinders and the Muslims-from Muslims.

The latest clamp, under Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party, is exclusively aimed at Muslims and led to protests that killed a teenager days ago.

Assam Firebrand’s lead minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, who is among a series of ambitious BJP leaders accused of promoting religious disagreement to mix populist emotions ahead of polls across the country, says that “the Muslims.

“We are fearlessly resist the ongoing, uncontrolled Muslim penetration from beyond the border, which has already caused a worrying demographic shift,” he recently told X.

“In several areas, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority on their own land.”

He told reporters last week that Muslim immigrants make up 30% of the assam’s 31 million population since the 2011 census.

“In a few years from now, Assam’s minority population will be close to 50%,” he said.

Sarma did not respond to a Reuters Request for comments.

Goals for right -wing groups

The BJP has long believed that Indian-Moy India is the natural home for all Hindus and is implementing policies to deal with the country’s large Muslim population.

In 2019, it amended the Law on India’s citizenship to effectively physically physically immigrant from neighboring countries.

Since he became chief minister in May 2021, the Sarma government has been expelled 50,000 people – mainly Bengali Muslims – from 160 square kilometers of land, with more scheduled.

Only last month, about 3,400 Bengali Muslim houses have a bulldozer on five estimated disks across Assam, according to state data. The previous government was expelled about 4,700 families in five years to early 2021.

“Muslims who speak from Bengali, regardless of their legal regime, have become vulnerable goals for the right teams in India,” said Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst of the International Crisis Group.

Opposition’s Indian leaders accused Sarma of using echoing and deportations to polarize voters before the election.

“These measures are politically beneficial and profitable for BJP,” said Akhil Gogoi, an opposition legislator.

The main party of the opposition Congress, whose overwhelming defeat in the 2016 Assam elections gave BJP its first government in the state, he said it would rebuild the demolished houses and prison those who destroyed them if they voted back to power.

Feelings against Muslims who speak from Bengali

The increase in estuaries is followed by a deadly attack on April to tourists in Indus illegally occupied Jamos and Kashmir (Iiojk) accused of “terrorists” by Pakistan – a claim that Islamabad strongly denied. The states with the BJP have rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling on suspicious “illegal immigrants” and a possible risk of security.

Analysts say that the links between New Delhi and Dhaka are exacerbated after the abolition of Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hassina have intensified feelings against Muslims speaking in Bengali, giving the BJP a political weapon.

Bengali is the main language of the Muslim majority of Bangladesh and also speaks widely in parts of India.

The states, including Assam, have also “pushed” hundreds of Bengali Muslims in Bangladesh. Some brought back because the appeals who challenged their non -Indian regime were heard in court, Reuters He has mentioned.

Assam officials say about 30,000 people have been declared foreigners in the state. These people are usually long -term residents with families and land, and activists say that many of them are often incorrectly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge court rulings.

New Delhi said in 2016 that about 20 million illegal Bangladeshi immigrants lived in India.

“The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in an obvious pursuit of unauthorized immigrants, but their actions reflect wider policies that are being discriminated against against Muslims,” said Elaine Pearson, director of Asia at Human Rights Watch.

India’s Foreign Ministry said in May that the country had a list of 2,369 people deported to Bangladesh. Called Bangladesh to speed up the verification process.

The Bangladeshi Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comments.

Since the removal of Hasina and the increase in attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh, Sarma has often shared details of trying to penetrate, with images of those caught in the social media.

“The ethnic-nationalism that has long been the Assam policy was merged perfectly with the religious nationalism of BJP,” Donthi said.

“Then the focus was shifted by strangers who spoke from Bengali to Muslims talking from Bengali.”