CM Fadnavis, has made deportation a cornerstone of his campaign
Lower-income Muslim-majority areas like Dharavi and Kurla bear the brunt
Bengali-speaking labourers form the backbone of industries from recycling to construction
Hamid Ali shifted uncomfortably on the worn plastic chair in the dimly lit anteroom of the Dharavi police station, a sliver of late-afternoon sunlight piercing the grimy window and warming his weathered skin. It was his third visit in as many weeks, each one a ritual of scrutiny: papers checked, questions repeated, his Bengali-inflected Hindi parsed for signs of foreign origin. "I've lost the sense of being," he murmured to himself, his voice barely audible over the hum of ceiling fans and the distant clamour of Asia's largest slum. A day labourer in one of Dharavi's leather workshops, Ali insists he hails from West Bengal, not across the border in Bangladesh. But in today's Mumbai, such distinctions often dissolve under the weight of suspicion.
This scene, repeated across the city's teeming informal settlements, underscores a surging crackdown on alleged illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, a campaign that has gained momentum amid heated political rhetoric as the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections loom on Jan. 15. Maharashtra's chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, has made deportation a cornerstone of his campaign, vowing at a Jan. 3 rally to "identify Bangladeshi infiltrators in Mumbai and send them back, making the city safer." His administration's efforts, officials say, have already resulted in the deportation of over 1,000 Bangladeshi nationals from Mumbai in 2025 alone, a sixfold increase from the previous year. Many of these actions have targeted lower-income Muslim-majority areas like Dharavi and Kurla, where Bengali-speaking labourers form the backbone of industries from recycling to construction.
In Dharavi, a 600-acre sprawl of corrugated tin roofs and narrow alleys housing over a million people, police rounds have become a familiar intrusion. Teams from the Mumbai Police's Foreigners Regional Registration Office descend unannounced, often at dawn, fanning out through the warren of lanes. They demand Aadhaar cards, voter IDs, and birth certificates, cross-referencing them against databases for discrepancies. Mobile phone records are scanned for calls to Bangladeshi numbers; tip-offs from informants lead to raids on cramped tenements. "We focus on high-density areas where intelligence suggests clusters of undocumented migrants," a senior police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss operations publicly. "It's about national security, preventing infiltration that could fuel crime or extremism."
The numbers tell a story of escalation. From January to November 2025, Mumbai police registered 401 cases against suspected illegal immigrants, leading to 1,001 deportations, far surpassing the 158 in 2024 and 61 in 2023. Officials attribute the spike to central government directives, including a "push-back" policy that expedites removals without full court proceedings in some cases. In nearby Pune, part of the broader Maharashtra crackdown, 81 Bangladeshis were among 104 deportations last year. Reports from human rights groups estimate that between 700 and 750 individuals have been deported specifically from Dharavi and Kurla in recent months, though exact figures remain opaque due to the opacity of the process.
Kurla, another hub of migrant labourers with its bustling markets and railway-adjacent shanties, has seen similar intensity. Residents describe a climate of fear: families pooling money for forged documents, others fleeing to relatives in less scrutinised suburbs. "Most of us are from Bihar or Bengal, working 12-hour shifts for 500 rupees a day," said Rafiq Hussain, a scrap sorter in Kurla East, who showed scars from a recent police scuffle. "But if your name sounds Muslim and you speak with an accent, you're a suspect." Advocacy organizations like Citizens for Justice and Peace have documented cases of Indian citizens, particularly Bengali Muslims, being deported without due process, and sometimes repatriated only after Bangladesh rejects them as non-nationals.
The drive intersects with broader political currents. Fadnavis's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition has framed the issue as essential to Mumbai's redevelopment, particularly in Dharavi, where a $3 billion makeover by the Adani Group aims to transform the slum into a modern township. Critics, including opposition leaders from the Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress, argue it's a ploy to disenfranchise Muslim voters ahead of the BMC polls, where control of the $5 billion municipal budget is at stake. "This isn't about security; it's about demographics," said Aaditya Thackeray, a prominent opposition figure, in a recent interview. "They're targeting the poor to consolidate their base."
Another incident involved Minarul Sheikh, a hair extensions supplier from Murshidabad, who was picked up in a night raid in the shoes market, Dharavi, in Mumbai. Despite presenting Aadhaar, voter IDs, and bank statements, authorities dismissed them, citing calls to Bangladeshi numbers related to his business. He was among more than 150 Bengali-speaking workers, mostly Muslims , handed over to the Border Security Force for "pushback." "They didn’t ask for my IDs initially," he said. "Not one person with me was Hindu. They were all Muslims."
A third case concerns family torn apart: a father deported from Mumbai, leaving his 18-year-old daughter, Ruksar Dadamiya Khan, detained by Mankhurd police. The Bombay High Court ordered her release in June 2025 on humanitarian grounds, but the family remains fractured, with the father struggling to return after wrongful expulsion.
Nationwide, the pattern repeats. In Delhi, 2,200 Bangladeshis were deported in 2025, a record high driven by similar enforcement. Human Rights Watch has condemned the operations, reporting hundreds of unlawful expulsions, including of Indian Muslims misidentified as foreigners. "The lack of transparent verification processes risks grave injustices," said Meenakshi Ganguly, the group's South Asia director. In Mumbai, social media buzzes with accounts of raids one X post from a local activist described a November operation in Govandi, a suburb adjacent to Dharavi, where dozens were detained amid cries of protest...
Yet for supporters, the crackdown is overdue. Groups like the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti have lobbied for a National Register of Citizens-style audit in Mumbai's slums, citing studies that claim up to 70 per cent of undocumented Bangladeshis hold Indian voter IDs through patronage networks. "These infiltrators strain resources and alter our city's fabric," said Sunil Ghanwat, a Samiti organizer, echoing sentiments at pro-government rallies.
As the sun dipped below Dharavi's skyline on that January afternoon, Ali emerged from the station with a stamped form granting temporary reprieve. But the questions linger: How many more rounds? And for how many others, the next visit ends not in release, but in a one-way journey to the border? In a city built on migration, the line between belonging and banishment has never felt so precarious
