West Bengal police detain Muslims as ‘Bangladeshis’ in midnight raids, sent to detention centres

West Bengal police detained at least nine Muslim men and two children since June on allegations that they are Bangladeshi nationals, with families and lawyers claiming the detainees were taken from their homes without warrants, arrest memos or immediate court proceedings.

Most of those detained are from Murshidabad district, according to an investigation by Scroll. At least four had cleared scrutiny during the Election Commission’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, while one man’s appeal against his exclusion from the electoral roll remains pending before an election tribunal.

Families said police often arrived at their homes around midnight, took the men away on suspicion of being Bangladeshi and refused to show documents explaining the basis for the detention. In some cases, police allegedly filed first information reports (FIRs) weeks after the detentions.

The allegations have triggered concerns among lawyers and rights activists, who say the detentions are being carried out without adequate legal safeguards.

“The scariest thing is that police are randomly picking up people and sending them to detention centres without producing them before the court, which is both illegal and anti-constitutional,” Jakir Hussain, a Murshidabad-based human rights activist associated with the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights, told Scroll.

‘They just disappeared him’

Parbin Khatun said she vividly remembers the night of July 29, when a group of men arrived at her home in Ramakantapur village in Murshidabad shortly after midnight.

Parbin had returned home from Kolkata a short while earlier and was in bed around 12:30am when seven or eight men knocked on the door and called out for her father-in-law, 61-year-old Ibrahim Sheikh.

According to Parbin, the men were dressed in civilian clothes but appeared to be police officers.

“They demanded to see his documents and so he showed them his Aadhaar and voter cards,” she said. “Then, they asked him, ‘Aapni ki Indian, na Bangladeshi?’” — asking whether he was Indian or Bangladeshi.

Ibrahim told them he was an Indian citizen, but the men claimed they had information that he was not.

Police subsequently filed a suo motu case against him under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, alleging that he was a foreigner who had entered India without valid travel documents.

The family says they submitted land records dating to 1967 in the name of Jalil’s father, Roshan Ali.

Police nevertheless said Jalil could not provide documentary evidence establishing that Ali was his father.

The police inquiry also noted that Jalil could not speak Bengali, despite claiming to have lived in Uttar Dinajpur for decades.

“Though language by itself cannot determine nationality, the said circumstance has been noted as one of the surrounding facts during enquiry,” the police said.

Jalil’s family speaks Surjapuri, a language spoken mainly in the Bihar-West Bengal border region and in the Islampur subdivision of Uttar Dinajpur.

Rahman alleged that police had told him they had a larger list of people to detain.

“They told me: ‘We have just started. We have 500 names on our list,’” he said.

Children among those detained

Eleven days after Ibrahim was detained, police arrived at another home in Murshidabad’s Nurpurdiyar village around 12:30am.

They were looking for Abdul Jabbar, the adopted son of Jamirul Sheikh.

Jamirul said police claimed Jabbar was Bangladeshi and took him away. Jabbar’s two sons, eight-year-old Ahad and six-year-old Jiad, were also taken into custody. His 11-month-old son remained with his mother.

“They have broken up a family,” Jamirul said.

Police asked the family to bring Jabbar’s documents to the station and allegedly promised that he would be released. But relatives were subsequently denied access to him.

Instead, police showed Jamirul a Bangladeshi birth certificate issued in 2022 and claimed it proved Jabbar was Bangladeshi.

Jamirul rejected the document as fake and produced other documents, including an Indian passport, a birth certificate issued by the Nupur gram panchayat and a voter card. Scroll said it had seen the documents.

Jabbar had also voted in the last Assembly elections after being included in the electoral rolls following the SIR.

Jamirul said Jabbar was born in 1990 and had grown up in India.

“We were not even given a chance to prove he is Indian,” he said.

Jabbar’s wife, 26-year-old Jumman Bibi, was later admitted to a hospital in Jangipur after suffering seizures and losing consciousness.

Her brother Nobinul Hoque said she repeatedly fainted and was distressed over the disappearance of her husband and two children.

Jumman told Scroll that police informed her that Jabbar and the children had been pushed into Bangladesh. She said the family last spoke to Jabbar on August 28, when he was being held at the Ahiran detention centre.

FIR filed weeks after detention

Another case involves 28-year-old Sahin Sheikh of Budher Kismat village in Murshidabad.

Police picked him up during a midnight raid on June 14, according to his wife, Amina Khatun.

“When we opened the door, the police started to question Sahin, asking him about his father’s and grandfather’s names. They claimed he was a Bangladeshi national,” she said.

Sahin told police he was born in India and had lived there all his life.

His wife later took documents to the police, including a 2003 land deed and a state-issued ration card, but alleged that officers refused to accept them.

Sahin had not been included in the electoral roll after this year’s SIR, but his appeal against the exclusion is pending before an election tribunal.

He was transferred to the Lalgola detention centre, where his family said police subsequently made attempts to deport him.

Police filed a suo motu FIR against him 20 days after his detention, according to his lawyer Mohammed Abu Raihain.

“This is completely illegal,” Raihain said. “The police FIR says they got information from a source that he is a Bangladeshi.”

The FIR alleged that police found a photocopy of a Bangladeshi birth certificate in Sahin’s bag, indicating his Bangladeshi origin.

Raihain questioned the authenticity of the document and said authorities had not verified it.

He said he had asked the court to verify Sahin’s voter card, panchayat certificate, school certificate and land documents through the Election Commission and district administration.

‘Police are picking up whoever they want’

Murshidabad-based lawyer Sahin Mandal said police action in several such cases violated constitutional safeguards.

“At the direction of the current government, the police are picking up whoever they want,” he said.

Sahin also represents Jibon Sheikh, who was detained by Murshidabad police on the night of June 26.

Jibon has documents including a voter card and school certificate, Sahin said, but police refused to accept them. He had also voted in the recent Assembly elections after being included in the electoral rolls following the SIR.

Jibon’s wife, 27-year-old Farida Bibi, said she had spent her savings supporting their three children while trying to secure his release from the Lalgola holding centre.

“He even has an identity card issued by the Bengal government stating he is a fish trader. They still took him,” she said.

More than two months after Jibon’s detention, his family had still not received an FIR or any other order explaining the basis for his detention, according to lawyer Selim Sheikh.

“We are moving Calcutta High Court next week challenging his detention,” Selim said.