India blocks Bangladeshis fleeing chaotic regime change

DHAKA (AFP): India has arrested nearly a dozen Bangladeshis attempting to cross the border to escape violence and political tumult following deadly protests that led to the ouster of prime minister Sheikh Hasina, border officials said on Monday.

Hundreds more are waiting along the frontier pleading for permission to cross, India’s Border Security Force (BSF) said. Hindus are the largest minority faith in mostly Muslim Bangladesh, and are considered a steadfast support base for Hasina’s party, the Awami League.

After Hasina’s abrupt resignation and escape to India ended her 15 years of autocratic rule on August 5, there were numerous reports of attacks against Hindu households, temples and businesses. India’s BSF said 11 Bangladesh nationals had been arrested since Sunday trying to “sneak” across the frontier into West Bengal state.

“Several hundred Bangladeshi nationals are still waiting in no-man’s land to cross over the border,” BSF deputy inspector general Amit Kumar Tyagi told AFP. Bangladesh is almost entirely encircled by India, with the border stretching for more than 4,000 kilometres, large parts of which are unfenced. Four Bangladeshis were also “repelled” from India’s Assam state, chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on social media platform X.

New Delhi has kept a wary eye on the fall of Hasina, who pursued a delicate balancing act of enjoying support from India while maintaining strong relations with China. Hindus account for around 8 per cent of Bangladesh’s 170 million people. Over the past week, religious rights groups said they documented more than 200 incidents of attacks on minority communities in Bangladesh, a figure that also includes Christians and Buddhists.

The security situation has since dramatically improved, and on Monday Bangladeshi police resumed patrols of the capital Dhaka, ending a strike that left a law and order vacuum. India’s home minister Amit Shah said on Friday a committee had been created to monitor the situation “to ensure the safety and security of Indian nationals, Hindus, and other minority communities living there”.

Interim government leader Muhammad Yunus’s “council of advisors”, the de facto cabinet now administering the country, said it had noted with “grave concern” some attacks on Hindus and other minorities. In its first official statement on Sunday night, the cabinet said it would work to “find ways to resolve such heinous attacks”.