The Assam Police on Sunday detained several residents of the state on suspicion of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh. Many of them were released more than 15 hours later, once their documents were verified.

The detention drive began on Saturday night and continued till Sunday morning, mostly in the Muslim neighbourhoods of Guwahati, including Hatigaon, Sijubari, Ghoramara and Sonapur.

Additionally, the border police also arrested several people from Golaghat, Dhubri, Barpeta and Cachar districts who have been declared foreigners in the past by foreigners’ tribunals, their family members and lawyers told Scroll.

The police are yet to confirm the number of detentions. However, a senior police official told Scroll that the “number of people picked up is well below 100”.

The official added that the detentions were part of a countrywide operation to detect the “illegal immigrants”.

“Document verification is going on,” said the official. “No one has been arrested yet. The drive stems from the security situation..why should we keep the foreigners [in the country].”

A sub-inspector posted in the Hatigaon police station told Scroll that the detentions were made after a Union government order.

He was referring to directions from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, asking states and Union Territories to verify the details of persons suspected to be Bangladeshi and Myanmarese nationals within 30 days.

Earlier this month, the Union government told states to invoke their statutory powers to “detect, identify and deport illegal immigrants”, according to The Indian Express.

On Sunday, the families of those who were detained protested outside the Guwahati Police Commissionerate.

Anowara Begum, the sister of one of the persons detained, Hannan Ahmed, told Scroll that she had submitted the documents of her brother. “But they did not check only.”

Scroll verified that Hannan has a voter identity card, his name, along with his parents’, featured in the 2019 National Register of Citizens. His grandfather and grandmother featured in the 1951 National Register of Citizens.

The register is a list of Indian citizens in Assam that was compiled in 2019 after several rounds of documentary and physical verification. This was the first time it was updated since 1951.

One of the stated aims of the exercise is to identify those the state defines as “illegal immigrants”.

Hannan was released by the police around 7 pm.

This came against the backdrop of reports alleging that Indian authorities had forced persons, including Rohingya refugees, into Bangladesh and Myanmar.

On Thursday, the Ministry of External Affairs stated that there are more than 2,360 cases of persons “required to be deported” from India.

“We have a large number of Bangladeshi nationals here who are required to be deported,” said Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiwal. “We have asked Bangladeshi side to verify their nationality.”