Under Cover of Darkness: Assam Pushes 18 Immigrants Back to Bangladesh as CM Sarma Vows Unrelenting Crackdown

In a pre-dawn operation on July 5, Assam authorities deported 18 Bangladeshi nationals, labeling them ‘illegal immigrants’ living without valid documents.,Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma personally confirmed the ‘pushback’ from Cachar and Sribhumi, framing it as the latest salvo in a relentlessly escalating statewide campaign.,The operation is part of a larger trend, with Sarma stating in June that nearly 300 others had been deported in the preceding months from locations including the Matia Transit Camp.,In a stunning move, Sarma has openly dismissed the validity of the state’s own National Register of Citizens (NRC), stating he is ‘not convinced’ an entry on the list proves legal status, signaling a new and unpredictable phase in the crackdown.

In the dead of night, while the state of Assam slept, a grim and decisive action was underway. Under the cloak of the ‘wee hours’ of July 5, 2025, authorities rounded up 18 Bangladeshi nationals and forcibly ‘pushed them back’ across the border. This was not a quiet administrative procedure; it was a declaration of intent from a government doubling down on a hardline anti-immigration policy, a campaign that is growing in intensity and brazenness with each passing week.

The official confirmation came not from a low-level bureaucrat, but from the top. Assam’s outspoken Chief Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, took to the public forum to announce the operation himself. “18 illegal Bangladeshis pushed back today in wee hours from Cachar and Sribhumi,” he stated, his words serving as both a report and a warning. This was the latest act in a meticulously orchestrated crackdown, one that has seen the Assam Police unleashed on a statewide hunt for anyone residing without what the government deems ‘valid documents’. The term ‘pushback’ itself is a cold, sterile euphemism for a process shrouded in secrecy, its human cost unknown and unrecorded.

A Relentless Campaign

This midnight deportation is no isolated incident. It is the visible tip of a much larger, and rapidly accelerating, iceberg. The numbers tell a story of a systematic and escalating purge. Just weeks earlier, on June 9, CM Sarma revealed that his government had already pushed back nearly 300 ‘illegal Bangladeshi immigrants’ in the preceding months. The net is being cast wide, with deportations originating not just from border regions but from state-run facilities like the Matia Transit Camp, a location that itself has become a symbol of the state’s controversial immigration policies.

The government’s actions are methodical and relentless. In March, a single Bangladeshi man caught trying to enter India was summarily sent back. By May, Sarma was giving accounts of deporting both Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. Now, the operations are becoming routine, announced with a chilling sense of accomplishment. This is a state machinery in overdrive, executing a political mandate with unwavering force. The question that hangs heavy in the air is not if there will be more pushbacks, but how many, and how often.

The Ghost of the NRC

Perhaps the most explosive element in this entire affair is the Chief Minister’s open contempt for the state’s own National Register of Citizens (NRC). The NRC was a colossal, expensive, and deeply divisive exercise meant to definitively settle the question of who is a legal citizen of Assam. Millions of people endured immense hardship to prove their lineage and secure a place on the list. Yet, on June 11, CM Sarma effectively rendered the entire process moot with a single, devastating statement.

“Personally, I am not convinced that the presence of a name in the NRC alone is enough to determine that someone is not an illegal migrant,” he declared. This is a political earthquake. It means that the very document the state created to end uncertainty is now being dismissed by the state’s own leader. It signals a terrifying new reality for the residents of Assam: even if you are on the official list, you are not safe. The state has given itself the power to look beyond its own records, to act on suspicion, and to make life-altering decisions based on criteria that remain dangerously undefined. It raises the unavoidable question: who were the 18 people deported on July 5? Were they on the NRC? The government isn’t saying, and that silence speaks volumes.

Echoes of a Troubled Past

This aggressive campaign is not happening in a vacuum. It is the modern-day echo of a long and bitter history. The source of this deep-seated political division can be traced back to the six-year-long Assam Movement, a period of intense agitation led, according to one academic analysis, by an ‘ultra-regionalist students union and an equally chauvinistic group’ with the explicit goal of expelling illegal immigrants. The rhetoric and the objectives of that movement are finding a powerful new voice in the current administration.

By framing the issue in stark terms of legality and national security, the government is tapping into a deep vein of ethno-nationalist sentiment. But the data gaps in its own reporting are glaring. The 18 individuals are a faceless statistic. We do not know their ages, their stories, or the circumstances that led them to be in Assam. The term ‘pushback’ masks a reality that is likely far more brutal and complex. This is a policy being executed with the precision of a military operation, but with the human details conveniently erased. As Assam barrels forward with its intensified drive, the international community watches, and the fate of thousands, if not millions, hangs precariously in the balance, subject to a government that has decided the official rules no longer apply.