The Odisha Police has detained 444 persons in Jharsuguda for “identity verification”, suspecting them to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh or Rohingya refugees, The Hindu reported on Wednesday.

Four others were detained in the port town of Paradip, according to the newspaper.

Later in the day, the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal claimed that among the detainees were migrants from the state working in Odisha.

The detentions are part of a statewide operation launched by the Bharatiya Janata Party government in Odisha to identify and deport undocumented Bangladeshi migrants living in the state.

In May, the Ministry of Home Affairs set a 30-day deadline for all states and Union Territories to verify the identity and documentation of individuals suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar. Those failing to produce valid documents would be liable for deportation.

The ministry also instructed states to invoke their statutory powers to detect, detain and deport illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP and Chairman of West Bengal’s Migrant Welfare Board Samirul Islam claimed that more than 200 migrant workers from the state had been detained in Jharsuguda “on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals”.

“This is a fresh round of detentions by the BJP-ruled Odisha government, following the earlier confinement of hundreds of migrant workers from Bengal,” Islam claimed in a social media post. “What is their fault? That they speak Bengali?”

Mahua Moitra, the party MP from Krishnanagar, claimed that 23 workers from the Nadia district were being held in “illegal detention” in Jharsuguda.

In a social media post, she said that the Krishnanagar Police had sent verification reports of all the workers to Odisha and requested the authorities to release the detainees.

On Tuesday, Superintendent of Police Parmar Smit Parshottamdashose told The Hindu that those detained in Jharsuguda were “mainly working in the construction sector while some were engaged in the mining sector”.

“All 444 of them are men,” Parshottamdas added.

The development comes nearly a month after four men from West Bengal, who had been picked up by the Maharashtra Police and “pushed” into Bangladesh, were brought back on June 15. The Murshidabad Police in West Bengal had presented proof of them being Indian citizens.

Over the past month, Indian authorities have been pursuing a policy to “push” individuals claimed to be undocumented migrants into Bangladesh. India has “pushed back” more than 2,000 persons into Bangladesh since the country launched “Operation Sindoor”, a military operation against terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The legality of the “push back” policy has been debated in India and internationally. Experts have told Scroll that the policy violated India’s obligations under international law and customary international law.

In March, Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi informed the Assembly that 3,738 undocumented migrants from Bangladesh were identified in the state, The New Indian Express reported.

Also read: India’s ‘pushback’ policy violates domestic and international law – but won’t face global censure