Malda holding centre houses 9 ‘Bangladeshis’ under West Bengal's 'Detect, Delete, Deport' policy—What is it? Explained

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in West Bengal on Monday put its “Detect, Delete and Deport” policy into action, with Malda becoming the first district to establish a holding centre for alleged illegal foreign nationals, where nine suspected Bangladeshi individuals have been accommodated.

The facility, located at Chandan Park in English Bazar and currently the only such centre in the district, became operational after nine people, including three women and six minors, were brought in from the Pandua area of Gazole on Sunday amid heightened security, according to senior district police officials.

"The holding centre has started functioning. At present, nine Bangladeshi nationals are being housed there. Necessary verification and legal procedures are being carried out. The detainees are being treated in accordance with prescribed legal norms," PTI quoted an officer as saying.

Those apprehended are then shifted to newly set up holding centres, including facilities in Malda and Murshidabad, where they may be kept for up to 30 days while District Magistrates and central agencies verify their nationality and biometric details. After the verification process, detainees are handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF), which coordinates with border counterparts such as the Border Guards Bangladesh to facilitate their repatriation.

"Those who are outside the purview of the CAA are illegal entrants and will be arrested by the state police and handed over to the BSF," Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had mentioned.

The announcement came during a meeting with senior officials of the BSF, where Adhikari handed over the first phase of land required for constructing barbed-wire fencing along a 27-km unfenced stretch on the Bangladesh border.

"A letter was sent by the Centre to the state on May 14 last year regarding the direct handover of infiltrators to the BSF, but the previous government failed to implement this important provision. We have now enforced it," Adhikari stated at the state secretariat Nabanna, as per PTI.

He did not specify the law under which the newly elected BJP government in West Bengal has introduced the policy change aimed at prosecuting infiltrators.

However, the reference appeared to point to the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, enacted by Parliament in April last year, which establishes a modern, technology-driven framework for immigration control, registration, monitoring, detention and deportation across India.

The legislation consolidates four earlier laws—the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939, the Foreigners Act, 1946, and the Immigration (Carriers Liability) Act, 2000—while replacing them with a unified legal structure.

Shortly after the law came into force, the Union Home Ministry issued an “exemption order” stating that members of minority communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan—including Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians—who had sought refuge in India due to religious persecution on or before December 31, 2024 without valid travel documents would not face prosecution under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

In contrast to the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which fixed December 31, 2014 as the eligibility cutoff for granting citizenship to non-Muslim immigrants, the exemption extended the timeline by ten years for purposes of non-prosecution under the new framework.

Consequently, non-Muslim refugees falling under the CAA category who entered India illegally between 2015 and 2024 from the three neighbouring countries due to fear of persecution would not be subjected to police action, despite not holding Indian citizenship.