West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Sunday (June 7, 2026) said that 4,800 “illegal infiltrators” from Bangladesh, who do not fall under the ambit of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, have been deported to Bangladesh over the past one month.

“There is a law of the Government of India, under which they [illegal infiltrators] could be handed over to the Border Security Force [BSF] instead of being sent to prisons. This law was used by other States, but here [in West Bengal], they were treated as guests and lodged in prisons, fed our food, given our clothes and treated with our medicines,” said Mr. Adhikari, while speaking at an event organised by the West Bengal BJP titled ‘Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Prashikshan Maha Abhiyan 2026’.

Mr. Adhikari said that holding centres have been set up in border districts of the State and 836 “illegal infiltrators” who are kept in the holding centres will soon be deported to Bangladesh. He also referred to the voluntary crossing of undocumented migrants from the border outpost at Hakimpur in North 24 Parganas district to the neighbouring country.

The Chief Minister further said that the demography of West Bengal was changed long ago and that deportation of “illegal infiltrators” is being done as a priority by the West Bengal government. On May 20, Mr. Adhikari had said that the policy of his government regarding “illegal infiltrators” was to “detect, delete and deport”.

The Chief Minister said that since the BJP government came to power, about 100 km of land has been handed over to the BSF and priority has been accorded to the strategically important “Chicken Neck” area of north Bengal. Mr. Adhikari said that the biggest issue before the BJP government was “illegal infiltration” and providing land to the BSF.

West Bengal shares a 2,216 km border with Bangladesh and about 556 km of this border remains unfenced, according to the Chief Minister.