The Border Security Force of India has recently pushed at least 122 Rohingyas, including 48 registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in India, into Bangladesh.
The Office of the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner said that they could detect 117 Rohingyas, including 43 registered by the UNHCR in India, who were pushed into Bangladesh by the BSF, in different camps in Cox’s Bazar until May 25.
The Armed Police Battalion and the Office of the RRRC identified five more Rohingyas registered by the UNHCR in India at a camp in Teknaf on June 10. The five were pushed into Bangladesh by the Indian authorities through the Tentulia border point in Panchagrah district on June 4, according to RRRC officials.
Pushing refugees registered in one country into another one is unlawful and a violation of the norms of International relations, academics said.
India began pushing people into Bangladesh on May 7 through different bordering points and it continued until June 10, according to the officials of Border Guard Bangladesh.
According to an RRRC letter sent to the disaster management and relief affairs secretary on May 27, the RRRC has recently detected 117 Rohingyas from India in 33 camps of Ukhia and Teknaf in Cox’s Bazar.
Of them, 43 are registered with UNHCR in India, 47 are registered with UNHCR in Bangladesh and 27 do not have any registration anywhere, it said.
‘We have identified that these 117 Rohingyas were pushed into Bangladesh by India recently. They, after the push-in incidents, took shelter in different camps in Ukhia and Teknaf. All of them were pushed by the Indian BSF,’ RRRC top official Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said on Wednesday.
Mizanur, however, said that the actual number of such Rohingyas might be higher than the data they collected as it was a compilation of the data collected until May 25.
Asked about checking Rohingya intrusion from India, RRRC chief Mizanur said that it was BGB’s task to check such intrusions.
Neither the BGB director general Major General Mohammad AshrafuzzamaSiddiqui nor its deputy director general for communications Colonel Mohammad Shariful Islam could be reached for comments despite several attempts over the phone. They also did not respond to text messages from New Age.
Over 1.3 million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh amid atrocities by the Myanmar military since 2017, according to government data.
In a letter to RRRC in April, the UNHCR pressed for ensuring accommodation of 1.13 lakh more Rohingyas who entered Bangladesh between November 2023 and April 27, 2025.
Dhaka University’s former international relations professor Imtiaz Ahmed said that pushing refugees registered in one country into another country instead of sending them to their homeland was unlawful.
‘According to my knowledge, Indian law does not allow such incidents. Human rights activists from India and Bangladesh should raise voices over push-ins,’ he said.
He also urged the government to conduct a survey of people pushed into Bangladesh from India for the sake of national security.
He stressed the need to engage experts in such a survey as the government seemed to have failed to manage the issue through diplomatic channels.
Dhaka University international relations professor ASM Ali Ashraf said that India, by pushing refugees into Bangladesh, was throwing the vulnerable community into more vulnerable conditions.
Asked whether India’s push-ins would create a security threat for Bangladesh, he said, ‘India is pushing Bangladeshis, Rohingyas and Indian nationals into our country. If they were trained to create instability in Bangladesh, it might be a further threat to our country.’
According to a report in the New York Times published online on May 17, the United Nations has called for an investigation into ‘credible reports’ that Indian authorities rounded up Rohingya refugees and expelled them.
A press release issued by the BGB on May 15 said that the BGB-22 Battalion detained five of a Rohingya family registered with UNHCR in India from the Natunhat Bazar area under Bhurungamari upazila in Kurigram on May 7.
The release said that the BSF pushed them into Bangladesh. The family that went to India from Myanmar two years ago used to live in the Matia Refugee camp in India’s Assam, it said.
The number of people pushed into Bangladesh by India since May 7 has reached 1,336 amid tight security measures taken by the BGB and the police along the border.
Bangladesh government has sent official letters to India over the push-in incidents.
The BGB also lodged verbal and written protests to their Indian counterpart BSF and held flag meetings over the issue.
