WB implements direct BSF handover of infiltrators; Suvendu rolls out 'detect, delete, deport' norm

West Bengal's Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari announced a new framework to detect, delete, and deport infiltrators, with the state police handing over detainees directly to the BSF for deportation.

West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on Wednesday announced the implementation of a mechanism under which infiltrators detained by state police would be handed over directly to the BSF for deportation, unveiling what he described as part of a broader ''detect, delete and deport'' framework.

The announcement was made at a meeting with senior BSF officials where Adhikari handed over the first tranche of land to construct barbed wire fences over a 27-km unfenced stretch along the Bangladesh border.

The move signalled a sharper policy turn on infiltration and border management -- long among the BJP's most potent political themes in Bengal, at the centre of the new government's agenda.

The chief minister did not name the Act under whose purview the newly elected BJP government in Bengal made the policy shift for prosecution of infiltrators.

However, it seemed Adhikari was referring to the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, passed by the Parliament in April last year, which aims to provide a modern, tech-driven system for immigration, registration, surveillance, detention, and deportation in India.

The new Act consolidated four previous Acts – the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, Registration of Foreigners' Act, 1939, Foreigners Act, 1946 and Immigration (Carriers Liability) Act, 2000 – and superseded them.

Enforced on September 1, 2025, the new law mandates the creation of a Bureau of Immigration and grants police officers, ranked Head Constable or above, the authority to arrest without a warrant anyone suspected of contravening mandatory immigration requirements of foreigners in India.

In the immediate wake of the promulgation of the law, the Union Home Ministry had passed an ''exemption order'', stating that persons belonging to minority communities in Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan – Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians – who sought shelter in India on grounds of religious persecution on or before December 31, 2024 without valid travel documents, would not be prosecuted under the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025.

In a departure from the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which earmarked December 31, 2014, as the entry deadline to non-Muslim immigrants to India as eligibility for granting of citizenship, the order, covering penal action on infiltrators, extended the entry date for such immigrants by another 10 years as grounds for their non-prosecution.

Effectively, this meant non-Muslim refugees – the same category of immigrants covered under the CAA – who illegally entered India between 2015 and 2024 from the three neighbouring countries, fearing religious persecution, would not face any police action in India despite being non-citizens.

Adhikari reaffirmed that provision in central law when he said on Wednesday that communities covered under the CAA would remain outside the ambit of the new mechanism, while others identified as infiltrators would face action with immediate effect.

''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,'' the chief minister said at the state secretariat Nabanna.

He alleged that the previous Trinamool Congress government had opposed the CAA and also failed to operationalise the mechanism proposed by the Centre.

''On one hand, the previous government opposed the CAA, and on the other, it did not use this important provision. We are implementing it today,'' Adhikari said.

Seeking to draw a distinction between refugee protection and illegal immigration, the chief minister referred to provisions under the CAA.

''Under the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the communities covered by it have been named, and those who came (to India) till December 31, 2024, are protected, and police cannot detain them,'' he said, in apparent reference to the extended date stated in the Immigration and Foreigner's Act.

The CM said those not covered under the law would be treated as infiltrators.

''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,'' Adhikari said.

''The BSF will speak to the Border Guards Bangladesh and take necessary steps to deport them,'' he said.

Adhikari described the framework as the implementation of the BJP's ''detect, delete and deport'' policy about infiltrators pledged ahead of the assembly elections.

The chief minister said instructions had already been communicated to the state's top administrative and police officials.

''We have informed the DGP and the home secretary that this law will be implemented in all police stations in border areas for the sake of West Bengal and the country's security,'' he said.

Officials said the mechanism would be implemented across police stations located in border districts, with coordination between state police and the BSF expected to form the backbone of the process.

For the BJP government in Bengal, the announcement appeared to be more than an administrative directive. Border management and infiltration have long occupied a central place in the party's Bengal politics. On Wednesday, those themes moved from campaign rhetoric to policy execution.