Ailverpara, India (Reuters), a sea of a blue tarpaulin in an angle of northeastern India, near Bangladesh, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies shelter after being expelled from their homes, in the last repression in Asam before the state elections.
They are among thousands of families whose houses have been bulldous in the last few weeks by the authorities – the most intensive such actions for decades – who have accused them of illegal residence on state land.
The demolitions in Asam, where the Hindu Nationalist Party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek a re-election early next year, coincided with a national bracket of Bengal Muslims, the brand of “illegal infiltrations” from Bangladesh after expires in August 2024 to the Pro-Indian Prime Minister.
“The government has repeatedly harassed us,” says Aran Ali, 53 years old, speaking to spots from naked land in Asama Asama, which has become an impromptu home for his family of three.
“We are accused of being affected by foreigners,” said Ali, who was born in Asam, while the burning July sun won in the settlement.
Asam represents 262 km of 4097 km of India’s border with Bangladesh and has long been struggling with anti-immigrant sentiment, rooted in fears that Bengal migrants-as Hindus and Muslims from the neighboring country will go beyond the local culture and economy.
The last pressing, under the Bharati Party, Modi’s Janna, focused exclusively to Muslims and led to protests that killed a teenager days ago.
Asama’s chief minister Himanta Busisa Sarma, who is among the many ambitious BJP leaders accused of igniting religious discord, to burst populist moods before polls across the country, “Muslim infiltrations from Bangladesh” threaten India’s identity.
“We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing, unverified Muslim infiltration from the whole border, which has already caused an alarming demographic change,” he said recently to X.
“In several areas, the Hindus are already on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land.”
He told reporters last week that migrant Muslims make up 30% of the 31 million Asam population to the 2011 census.
“In a few years, the population of Asam minorities will be close to 50%,” he said.
Sarma did not respond to Reuters’s request for comment.
“Vulnerable goals”
BJP has long believed that the Hindu majority India is the natural homeland for all Hindus and applies policies to counteract the country’s large Muslim population.
In 2019, it amended the Citizenship Act in India to naturally naturalize the naturalization of non -school migrants from neighboring countries.
Since becoming Chief Minister in May 2021, the Sarma government has expelled 50,000 people – mainly Bengal Muslims – from 160 square kilometers of land, with more planned ones.
In the past month alone, about 3,400 Muslim homes in Bengal were bulldous in five discs for expulsion in Asam, according to state data. The previous government expelled about 4,700 families in the five years to the beginning of 2021.
“The Bengali, who speak Muslims, regardless of their legal status, have become vulnerable goals for the right groups in India,” says Legal Dantti, a senior analyst at International Crisis Group.
Indian opposition leaders have accused Sarma of using expelling and expulsion to polarize voters before the election.
“These measures are politically useful and profitable for BJP,” said Achilles Gogoy, an opposition MP.
The main party of the opposition Congress, whose lubricating defeat in the 2016 election, gave BJP its first government in the state, said it would restore the demolished houses and close those who destroyed them if they voted back to power.
“Push Backs”
The tide of expellines follows a deadly attack in April for Hindu tourists in Kashmir, accused of “terrorists” by Muslim-mention Pakistan, denies Islamabad. Since then, countries ruled by BJP have rounded thousands of Bengal Muslims, calling them suspected “illegal immigrants” and a potential security risk.
Analysts say that the worsening links between New Delhi and Dhaka have been strengthened by the Bangladesh Prime Minister, have strengthened the moods against the Bengali, who speak Muslims by giving BJP political weapons to use for votes.
The Bengal is the main language of the Muslim majority Bangladesh and is also widely spoken in parts of India.
Countries, including Asam, have also “pushed” hundreds of Bengal Muslims in Bangladesh. Some of them were returned because the appeals challenging their non -Indian status were heard in court, Reuters reported.
Asam officials say about 30,000 people have been declared foreigners from tribunals in the state. Such people are usually long -term inhabitants with families and land, and activists say that many of them are often wrongly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge the tribunal judgments.
New Delhi said in 2016 that about 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants live in India.
“The Indian government puts thousands of vulnerable people at risk in the apparent pursuit of unauthorized immigrants, but their actions reflect more width discriminatory policies against Muslims,” said Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch.
The India Foreign Ministry said in May that the country has a list of 2369 persons to be deported to Bangladesh. He urged Banglades to speed up the verification process.
The Bangladesh Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
As the removal of Hasina and the growth of attacks against Hindus in Bangladesh, Sarma often shares details about attempts at infiltration, with photos of social media.
“Ethno -nationalism, which has long revived Asama’s policy seamlessly, has merged with BJP religious nationalism,” Donti said.
“Then the focus shifted from the Bengali, who talk to outsider, to the Bengali, who speak Muslims.”
(Ronted by Agerwala; eid LED, Ediingna n