How the Indian government is keeping Rohingya out

By Omkar Khandekar
In August 2012, a family of seven from Cox Bazaar, Bangladesh, boarded a bus to the Indo-Bangladesh border. They planned on sneaking into India that night. They were Rohingya — an ethnic group of Myanmar’s Rakhine province.
There would be three separate groups of helpers, their dalal (facilitator) had told them over the phone. One would escort them to a Bangladeshi village near the border, another would take them across to West Bengal and the third would get them onto a train in Kolkata. It would cost them 10,000 taka
(Rs 8,000) each. A part was his fee and the rest, bribes. But if arrested, the dalal warned, he wouldn’t be bailing them out.


The 1982 Burmese citizenship law refused to recognise Rohingya as one of the country’s 135 ethnicities, rendering them stateless, restricting their rights to job, education, marriage, religion and free movement. With no official citizenship, they have no recourse to passports or visas required to avail legal immigration.

Seven years ago, the family had fled Myanmar to Bangladesh after being persecuted by the Buddhist majority state. Now, they were escaping a crackdown on Rohingya refugees by the Bangladesh police after sectarian violence between Buddhists and Muslims in Rakhine prompted fresh exodus to the country. As instructed, they got off the bus a few miles before the village near the western border of Bangladesh. Over the next six hours, their first guide led them through shallow streams and paddy fields before dropping them off at a hut surrounded by a dense thicket. Around 2.30 am, two men walked in and ordered them to get ready. The border guards were about to change shifts. They only had 30 minutes.

“It was very scary,” recalled Maung Shwe (name changed), who now lives in a refugee camp in New Delhi. “I was thinking we would be killed that night.” Ten minutes later, they were in India and into yet another hut. The next evening, they boarded a taxi to Kolkata, then a train to New Delhi. “Come to think of it, it didn’t even seem like a border,” said Shwe. He hadn’t seen a fence, a wall or even security personnel. “All our guides were locals. They weren’t scared at all. They seemed used to this.”



BSF personnel patrolling a border region at Angrail village, West Bengal

It’s a story familiar to several Rohingya across India. India shares a 4,096 km border with Bangladesh, only half of which is fenced. West Bengal, which shares a border of nearly 2,217 km, has been the most preferred route for illegal migration from Bangladesh, often through a network of touts and complicity of security forces.

Last year, the government said in Rajya Sabha that an estimated 2 crore Bangladeshis live illegally in India. Rohingya, most of whom live at makeshift camps in New Delhi, Jammu, Hyderabad and Jaipur, make up around 40,000. But despite their small numbers, their presence has resulted in a legal, diplomatic and political slugfest over the past month.

Perilous Existence
The Rohingya of Myanmar, with an unenviable combination of being poor, illiterate and an ethnic minority, are counted among the world’s most persecuted. The 1982 Burmese citizenship law refused to recognise them as one of the country’s 135 ethnicities, rendering them stateless, restricting their rights to job, education, marriage, religion and free movement. A systematic repression for decades has resulted in over a million refugees.

In the past two years, claiming their “right to defend” themselves, an armed rebel group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) targeted several police posts in two separate attacks, killing 21. After the latest incident on August 25, Burmese troops, backed by Buddhist mobs, began ravaging Rohingya villages. Survivors recounted children being killed, women being brutally raped, many of those fleeing shot in the back. Nearly 1,000 died, over 5 lakh sought refuge in Bangladesh. It was, said the UN Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, “a textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.


The Ichamati river and its tributaries act as border between India and Bangladesh. Most Rohingya crossed into India from North 24 Parganas, South Dinajpur and Cooch Behar districts. They also enter from international border crossings at Petrapole and Ghojadanga.

Although it has been silent on the Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya, India was quick to condemn the ARSA militants. It stood strongly with Myanmar’s “fight against terrorism”, a foreign ministry statement said on August 25. On September 5, Kiran Rijiju, Union Minister for State, reiterated that the Rohingya refugees in India would soon be deported. “For us,” he reasoned, “all of them remain illegal immigrants.”

For many observers, the justification flew in the face of the dilemmas faced by Rohingya. With no official citizenship, Rohingya have no recourse to passports or visas. required to avail legal immigration channels. The Indian chapter of United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), which has registered nearly 16,500 Rohingya, says deportation posed a direct threat to their lives. “Refugees and asylum seekers are often forced to flee from their countries without proper documents,” said Ipsita Sengupta, Policy Associate at the UNHCR, New Delhi. “They should not be denied asylum merely on the basis of irregular entry.”

On September 15, a meeting was held between Nripendra Misra, the Principal Secretary. to the PM, NSA chief Ajit Doval and the heads of intelligence agencies. An intel report, purportedly discussed at the meeting, was subsequently leaked to the press. “In our assessment,” it concluded, “penetration of Pakistan-based terrorist outfits among Rohingya Muslim community is a serious emerging threat, as the same would ultimately be used for targeting India.”


“This is clearly a case of religious discrimination and an attempt to arouse an anti-Muslim feeling,” said advocate Prashant Bhushan, who had earlier challenged the Centre’s stand on deporting Rohingyas in the Supreme Court. A week later, the Centre sent a circular to various central and police agencies to keep a watch on all mosques, unregistered madarssas, railway stations and flag halts in bordering districts in West Bengal and the Northeast. A BSF official told Reuters they had the authority to use “rude and crude” methods to stop any attempts at “infiltration” of the Rohingya. In October, around 150 vulnerable spots were identified along the Indo-Bangladesh border, most in West Bengal.

“Our mandate is clear,” said PSR Anjaneyulu, inspector general of Border Security Force (BSF) South Bengal Frontier. “Rohingya must be stopped and pushed back into Bangladesh or whichever part they might be coming from.” Troops were being sensitised to the refugee crisis, additional boats were
hired to patrol riverine areas like Sunderbans and village coordination meetings were being held in vulnerable areas, he added.


The Centre has sent a circular to various central and police agencies to keep a watch on all mosques, unregistered madarssas, railway stations and flag halts in bordering districts in West Bengal and the Northeast.

Porous Passage
What about the allegations of corruption among the BSF personnel, which has al Porous Passage What about the allegations of corruption among the BSF personnel, which has allowed for infiltration over the years? “I’m not going to agree or disagree,” said Anjaneyulu. “There would be bad people in all professions.” While such people might account for 1-2% of total infiltration, the BSF, he said, was “very patriotic, at times more patriotic than the Indian Army.”

What made matters tricky was the topography of the region. “We have a 918 km border, a third of which is fenced. The rest is either unfenced or riverine. It’s easy [to cross]... You have ethnic similarities on both sides, crops on both sides, sometimes villages on both sides of the fence.”


These are the very factors that make West Bengal the most preferred route to cross over to India, says Suchitra Sengupta, a former research assistant at Calcutta Research Group. In 2014, Sengupta had interviewed and analysed the status of 98 Rohingya in correctional centres in West Bengal as a part of a study. Most Rohingya, she found, crossed into India from North 24 Parganas, South Dinajpur and Cooch Behar district.

They learnt the Bangla language (a dialect similar to the Bengali spoken in India) in Bangladesh and Hindi from Bollywood movies, popular in both Bangladesh and Myanmar. “They preferred West Bengal because of its relative accessibility than the Northeast,” she said.

Around 85,000 BSF troops are posted around India’s border with Bangladesh. In the initial list of 22 sensitive spots that the South Bengal BSF shared with ET Magazine last month, 18 belonged to the North 24 Parganas district, which shares nearly 241 km of international border (the list was updated with 28 other spots across south Bengal in October). Among those this writer visited were villages like Panitar, where parts are separated by a narrow mud path and Indians and Bangladeshis live within shouting distance of each other. In most others, including Hakimpur, Ghojadanga, Tarali, Angrail and Haridaspur, the Ichamati river and its tributaries act as border. Some parts have a 10-ft three-layered fence with concertina wires, others have two-foot rock stumps for border-pillars. The list also includes international border crossings at Petrapole and Ghojadanga, used by thousands for travel and trade every day.


According to the UN, more than 5,00,000 refugees have crossed the border from Rakhine since August 25.

“We have started a threelayer security system with an eye on border, arterial and exit roads,” said an officer posted at one such border outpost, requesting anonymity since they aren’t authorised to speak to the media. “Anyone entering or exiting border villages needs to have a valid identity card. We are checking the bus stops, railway stations and have increased patrolling with boats and jeeps.” Even the livestock entering villages is regulated. “Humare bina yahan ka ek patta bhi nahi hil sakta (In here, not even a leaf can move without us knowing),” another boasted.

But in their less guarded moments, officers said that clamping down on illegal border crossings completely was a tall order, especially in the unfenced areas. Some of villagers, they said, are involved in smuggling of cattle, goods and people. Cattle reportedly worth Rs 5,000 crore is smuggled annually into Bangladesh and an unknown number of people cross over illegally. On average, the battalions in vulnerable areas encountered between 10 and 30 infiltration bids per month, most of them Bangladeshis coming to India for work. But counterfeit cash and Indian ID cards, including Aadhaar and PAN, can be easily procured in Bangladesh. This makes the verification of suspicious persons difficult.


Cattle reportedly worth Rs 5,000 crore is smuggled annually into Bangladesh and an unknown number of people cross over illegally.

Push Back
While the BSF is authorised to use non-lethal force like stun guns and chilli sprays, the Rohingya, if caught, barely put up any resistance, although some may try to pass off as Bangladeshis. “You see it in their body language,” said an officer. “They are unfamiliar with the region, hence low on confidence.” 175 Rohingya were caught in the past few years by the South Bengal Frontier BSF, seven in 2017. The North Bengal Frontier BSF, meanwhile, caught 46 others. Many are subsequently charged under Foreigners Act and sentenced for up to two years. Since 2014, nearly 270 have similarly wound up in Indian jails.

After an alert was sounded across borders last month, three more groups of 19 Rohingya were arrested from Petrapole and Hakimpur. But this wasn’t infiltration per se — they were refugees settled in various parts of India trying to cross over to Bangladesh. Some also carried UNHCR registration cards. They wanted to meet their relatives in Bangladesh, they told the BSF.

Ordinarily, the officer explained, the BSF would hand such detainees to the police. But this time, the instructions were to ‘push back’, so they were taken to the border and let go to the other side. “Nobody’s willing to take them,” the officer shrugged. “The Bangladesh border guards won’t accept them. We have our own policy. What else can you do?”


In September, four Rohingya were arrested from Tripura and three in Assam. On September 23, the Manipur chief minister revealed that 265 suspected Bangladeshi nationals were detained and 165 “pushed back”.

A similar drive was underway in other parts of the border. In Cooch Behar of North Bengal, the BSF started patrolling erstwhile Bangladeshi enclaves in search of illegal immigrants. In September, four Rohingya were arrested from Tripura and three in Assam. The BSF in Manipur began combing houses in the towns of Moreh, Jiribam and Behiang along the Indo-Myanmar border. On September 23, the state chief minister revealed that 265 suspected Bangladeshi nationals were detained and 165 “pushed back”.

For all the heightened security, the possibility of an immediate Rohingya exodus seems rather alarmist. Since last month, the Bangladesh government has restricted their movement outside refugee camps. Landlords are told not to rent any property to Rohingya, transport operators asked not to ferry them. “Most Rohingya refugees spend the first few months in Bangladesh. They travel to India mainly because they already have relatives here,” said Santosh Chakma, director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.

The border towns in West Bengal are used to undocumented migrants. Local journalists say auto and bus operators often charge a premium to sneak them through security checkposts. At guest houses, rooms are rented out at exorbitant prices to those without Indian identity papers. Touts and middlemen, said to live in and around the border villages, usually charge between Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 per person and smuggle in groups of 10-15 at a time. Often, this is done with the knowledge of BSF personnel.



“If it’s an honest officer, he will probe you well,” says Mustafa Sardar, a farmer from Hakimpur. “What’s the name of the neighbouring village, who is its sarpanch, how many children does he have? But if it’s a corrupt officer, he will simply let you pass.” Border security has become more robust over the years, he added, so the touts have started coaching their clients with local trivia.

And yet, there are leaks. A 19-year-old construction worker in Petrapole revealed that he had crossed over a couple of months ago from the fields in the unfenced part of the village. His father, he said, had showed him the way when he was eight. “The countries are different, but the people are the same.”

It’s a sentiment shared by many others. On the final day of Durga Puja, residents of Taki and their counterparts in Bangladesh would hop aboard boats and cross the Ichamati river separating the countries to visit each other’s villages. “There would be a mela (fair) on both sides,” recalled Sridip Roy Choudhary, resident of Taki. “We’d buy coconuts and sugarcane from there, they’d buy oil, soap and Boroline (antiseptic) cream from here.” The boats still sail on the festival days, but the tradition has been suspended since early 2000s. Forbidden from meeting, the residents now wave at each other from the middle of the river.


On this writer’s last evening in North 24 Parganas, he boarded a bus from the border town of Haridaspur to Bangaon. While passing through a stretch of dense trees, two groups of passengers boarded the bus: two middle-aged men, and two teenagers with a slightly older woman. At the BSF checkpost a few minutes later, the middle-aged men were de-boarded. They had no ID on them. The woman flashed an Indian PAN card and said the teenagers were her brothers. The conductor took a look at it and pitched in with a word of support.


At the last stop, the conductor confronted the woman. There was a flurry of exchange in Bengali. Eventually, she paid the conductor a 100 rupee bill and walked away. “They were coming from the other side,” the conductor said, grinning. “We passed through Hindu-dominated villages. They were wearing ittar (a perfume traditionally worn by Muslims, the dominant population in Bangladesh and among Rohingya).”

(The writer is a freelance journalist)