In a major policy speech on Sunday, June 7, 2026, West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced that the state government has successfully deported approximately 4,800 illegal immigrants to Bangladesh over the past month.
Speaking at a BJP organizational training camp in Kolkata, the Chief Minister confirmed that the undocumented migrants—who do not fall under the protective ambit of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA)—were processed through newly established holding facilities across various border districts and handed directly over to the Border Security Force (BSF).
According to Adhikari, an additional 836 individuals are currently being held at these facilities pending final nationality verification before their imminent removal.The Chief Minister heavily criticized the previous Trinamool Congress (TMC) administration, accusing them of coddling undocumented cross-border migrants for political gain instead of executing federal deportation laws.
Adhikari stated that while other border states actively repatriated illegal entries, the former regime lodged them in state prisons, treating them as “guests” who availed themselves of food, clothing, and medical facilities at the expense of local taxpayers.
He reiterated his administration’s strict “detect, delete, and deport” policy, emphasizing that changing the altered demographic profile of West Bengal remains a top security priority.
Beyond the immediate deportations, the state government is rapidly expediting physical border infrastructure to seal off long-standing gaps. Adhikari revealed that the state has already transferred 100 kilometers of critical land to the BSF out of the 556 kilometers required to fully fence the expansive India-Bangladesh international boundary. Top priority has been accorded to the highly sensitive “Chicken’s Neck” or Siliguri Corridor in north Bengal due to its immense strategic vulnerability.
To further institutionalize this crackdown, the government announced it will carry out a comprehensive, statewide household verification survey between August 1 and August 15 to map out residency records across all municipal and rural blocks.
