Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Saturday confirmed that the state government is now pushing back Rohingya refugees, among other “illegal infiltrators” into Bangladesh, instead of filing legal cases against them, The Assam Tribune reported.

Sarma said that the approach earlier was to arrest such persons and bring them under the Indian legal system. They would be detained, produced before a court and held in jails, he added.

“We have now decided we will not bring them inside the country,” the BJP leader said. “We will push them back. Pushing them back is a new phenomenon.”

The BJP leader’s statement comes days after Bangladesh’s border force detained at least 123 persons whom it alleged India had pushed into the country without documents on Wednesday.

Among those detained were Rohingyas and Bengali-speaking persons. They were in the custody of the Border Guard Bangladesh and their identities were being verified, The Daily Star had quoted Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, the director general of the paramilitary force, as saying.

Border Guards Bangladesh is the paramilitary force responsible for the country’s border security.

“Infiltration is a big issue,” The Telegraph quoted the Bharatiya Janata Party leader as telling reporters after a state Cabinet meeting. “We have now decided that we will not go through the legal process.”

Calling such pushback a “new innovation”, Sarma added: “That is why you are hearing about more numbers. Otherwise, the influx remains the same – about 4,000 to 5,000 people enter every year – but with pushbacks, the numbers will drop.”

India shares a 4,096-km border with Bangladesh.

Bangladesh also lodged a strong protest against the alleged “push-ins” with India’s Border Security Force, added Siddiqui.

“Dhaka is trying to establish contact with New Delhi on the reported push-ins of people from India through the Indo-Bangladesh borders in Kurigram and Khagrachhari,” National Security Adviser Khalilur Rahman was quoted as saying.

He added that if the detained persons are verified to be citizens of Bangladesh, “we will accept them”.

“This will have to be done in a formal channel,” said Rahman. “Pushing them in is not the way.”

On Saturday, Sarma claimed that such “pushback is a daily affair because we have created a system where we convince the BGB [Border Guards Bangladesh] that these people are about to enter.”

The chief minister said that this was an “operation” by the Union government involving foreign nationals from across the country, in which Assam was a stakeholder too, The Indian Express reported

Inmates of the Matia detention centre in Assam, including Rohingyas, were among identified foreigners recently “pushed back” into Bangladesh, Sarma added.

The detention centre, in Goalpara, became operational in January 2023. It is the largest detention centre in India. As of January this year, it had held 270 inmates.

These inmates include bonafide foreign nationals sentenced and convicted for violations of the Foreigners Act, the Citizenship Act and the Passports Act and awaiting deportation. It also includes declared “foreigners” by foreigners tribunals in Assam.

The foreigners tribunals in the state are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship.

“Now the only people in Matia are declared foreigners, in whose cases litigation is pending,” The Indian Express quoted Sarma as saying. “Except them, everyone from the camp has gone back to Bangladesh.”

He added: “Rohingyas have also gone back, along with declared foreigners with no appeal pending or those who had no case and were being kept there. Matia is almost free now with 30-40 people left.”

In February, Scroll tracked down relatives of seven of the 63 persons who were declared foreigners and have challenged the order of the foreigners’ tribunals in various constitutional courts, including in the Supreme Court. All of them contested the Assam government’s claim that they were from Bangladesh.