Three Indians were among a group of 78 people “pushed” across a river into Bangladesh on May 8, alleged a report by the police in Bangladesh’s Satkhira town.

The 78 persons had been rescued from the Mandarbaria area of the Sundarbans in Satkhira by Bangladeshi forest department officials and the coast guard, said Humayun Kabir, the officer in-charge of the Shyamnagar police station in Bangladesh, who filed the report on Monday.

The report said the three purported Indians among them were arrested for entering Bangladesh without documents. They were identified as 20-year-old Abdur Rahman, 24-year-old Muhammad Hasan Shah and 19-year-old Saiful Sheikh.

They are from Nehrunagar in Gujarat, the report claimed.

A case was registered against them in Bangladesh under section 4 of the 1952 Control of Entry Act.

Scroll contacted India’s Ministry of External Affairs and a response is awaited.

The police in Gujarat, from where the men were allegedly detained, rejected allegations that the group had been pushed into the water.

Sharad Singhal, the joint commissioner of police (crime) for Ahmedabad city, told Scroll that the correct procedure has always been followed.

“In fact, we have handed 31 Bangladeshis in January to Bangladesh authorities and 46 in April,” Singhal said. “[The allegation] is not correct and totally false one that they have been dropped.”

Kabir, the Bangladeshi police officer in-charge, said that the 75 Bangladeshis had been sent to their relatives on Monday and Tuesday.

The Bangladeshi police report says that on April 26 at about 4 am, Ahmedabad’s Chandola area was the site of a raid by Gujarat Police personnel. They included some in plain clothes from the crime branch.

The operation was conducted in the wake of the terror attack on Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir that left 26 dead.

The Gujarat Police detained 1,024 persons alleged to be Bangladeshi nationals living in Ahmedabad and Surat, The Indian Express reported.

The Bangladeshi police report alleged that many of them were taken to the police station, and their homes were demolished using bulldozers. About 4,000 structures were razed in the Chandola area in three days, The Indian Express reported on May 6.

The Bangladesh police report claims that that the detained persons were taken to the office of the special operations group in Ahmedabad, where they were held for four or five days. After this, the group was taken to jail for one day. They were brought back to the special operations group office for a day, followed by another day at the crime branch.

The report alleged that the persons were taken to an airport, where their hands were tied and they were put on a military aircraft.

“Their eyes were blindfolded 15 minutes before landing,” the Bangladesh police report claimed. “After disembarking, they were taken to a ship via bus, where they were kept for three nights and three days with their hands and eyes tied.”

The Bangladeshi police report alleged: “During their time on the ship, they were brutally beaten with aluminium pipes and wires on their buttocks and other parts of their bodies. They were provided with one piece of bread, one packet of biscuits and one bottle of water per day as food.”

They were given life jackets and transferred to boats, the report said.

On the night of May 8, “while in the sea during high tide, their hand and eye bindings were removed, and they were thrown into the water from the speedboats”, the Bangladeshi police alleged.

“They swam to the shore and spent the night searching for local residents in the darkness but were unsuccessful,” the Bangladeshi police said. “At dawn, they spotted a tower in the forest and approached it, where they met forest department personnel.”

The forest department personnel contacted the Bangladeshi coast guard. A coast guard team took the group to their unit in Mongla at 7 pm on May 9, the police report said.

The Bangladesh border force had alleged on May 8 that it had detained at least 123 persons whom it claimed India had “pushed” into the country without documents. Among those detained were Rohingyas and Bangla-speaking persons.

Major General Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman Siddiqui, the director general of the paramilitary force, had told The Daily Star that the persons were in the custody of the Border Guard Bangladesh and their identities were being verified.

A senior Indian police officer had confirmed to Scroll that some individuals had been detained by Bangladesh. But the officer did not confirm how many had been detained. Some of the persons were from the Matia detention centre in Assam, the officer said.

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

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

Maktoob Media had reported on Monday that Indian authorities had allegedly thrown 43 Rohingya refugees, detained from New Delhi, into international waters near the maritime border with Myanmar. This had allegedly forced children, women and elderly persons to swim to safety using life jackets.

The solicitor general of India had assured the Supreme Court on May 8 that the deportation of undocumented immigrants from the Rohingya community would take place in accordance with legal processes.