Assam is “pushing” back to Bangladesh persons who have been declared foreigners by the state’s Foreigners Tribunals, confirmed Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday.

The statement came against the backdrop of a surge in detentions of declared foreigners in Assam since May 23. Families say they have no information on their relatives’ whereabouts. Some of them have identified their missing relatives in videos from Bangladesh, alleging they were forcibly sent across the border.

Saying that the process to push back foreigners would continue, Sarma claimed that the action was being taken as per the directives issued by the Supreme Court in February.

On February 4, the top court directed the state government to start the process of deporting foreign nationals being held in the state’s detention centres immediately.

The court had said that foreign nationals can be deported even without an address. “You cannot continue to detain them indefinitely...Once they are held to be foreigners, they should be deported immediately.”

Sarma claimed on Friday that the state was only pushing back those who have been declared foreigners and have not appealed in court.

“If among them, some people tell us that they have appeals in the High Court or Supreme Court, then we are not troubling them,” he said.

Foreigners Tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship. Only those living in the state before March 25, 1971, or their descendants, qualify as Indian citizens in Assam, as per the Assam Accord.

However, these tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and of declaring people foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.

On Friday, the Assam chief minister also claimed that 30,000 persons declared as foreigners in the state have gone missing, reported Deccan Herald. They will be sent back wherever they are found, he added.

The detection and deportation efforts had been informally halted during the process of updating the National Register of Citizens, but the state has now decided to resume the drive and “push them back to Bangladesh”, said Sarma.

On Tuesday, Scroll reported that a former teacher from Morigaon district, Khairul Islam, whose citizenship case was still being heard in the Supreme Court, had been picked up from the Matia detention centre and forced out along the Bangladesh border near Assam’s South Salmara district in the early hours of May 27.

In the video recorded by journalist Mostafuzur Tara from Bangladesh’s Rangpur division, Khairul Islam alleged that he was among 14 persons “pushed” into Bangladesh by India’s Border Security Force on Tuesday morning.

Islam and the others were reported to be in no man’s land, between the two countries.

Gauhati HC seeks Assam’s response

On Thursday, the Gauhati High Court issued a notice to the Assam government, seeking information on the whereabouts of two men from Kamrup district – Abu Bakkar Siddique and Akbar Ali – who went missing after being summoned the police on May 25, Live Law reported.

The court has asked the state to respond to its notice by June 4.

“Since then, the authorities have refused to give details of their whereabouts,” Aman Wadud, one of the advocates representing them in court, had told Scroll.

The petitioner, Torap Ali, had said that he was “apprehensive that his uncles will be pushed back into Bangladesh, in light of recent reports”.

Assam’s Opposition leader Debabrata Saikia on Friday wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar raising concern about the state pushing back persons to Bangladesh.

In his letter, Saikia accused the Assam Police of carrying out the crackdown in violation of constitutional rights and due process.

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