On the voter list, yet deported? SIR throws up a new Bengal puzzle
Despite the SIR's stated aim, some people who survived the roll revision — and even voted — have since been detained as suspected foreigners and allegedly pushed across the border
The political narrative around illegal migration in West Bengal is fast shifting.
Even inclusion in the 2026 Special Intensive Revision (SIR) voter list — an exercise designed to purge ineligible voters following allegations of Bangladeshi infiltration — no longer protects individuals from being branded as foreign nationals.
Defending the SIR during a Lok Sabha debate on electoral reforms, Union Home Minister Amit Shah described it as “nothing else but cleaning up of the voter list”. He said the government would “not allow even one illegal immigrant in the country” and outlined its policy of “detect, delete (from electoral lists) and deport”.
Detained as suspected foreigners
Contrary to the stated objective of the SIR, cases are now emerging of people whose names survived the exercise, and who were even allowed to vote, yet were later detained as suspected foreigners and allegedly pushed across the border.
Also read: Calcutta HC sets aside arrest warrant against Mahua Moitra, shifts case to MP/MLA court
The case of 37-year-old Abdul Jabbar, a resident of Nurpur in Murshidabad’s Suti block, brings this contradiction into sharp focus. According to his wife, Jhuma Bibi, Jabbar was picked up by police around midnight on August 8 along with their two minor sons, Abdul Ahad (8) and Abdul Jihad (6). The family said they were taken on suspicion of being Bangladeshis. However, Jhuma Bibi has not been detained, a move again defies logic.
Abdul Jabbar's Aadhaar card and Voter ID.
The next day, Jhuma went to the police station with relevant identity documents but was not allowed to see her husband. Jhuma further said Jabbar’s name appeared on the 2026 SIR voter list, a fact local MP Khalilur Rahman also confirmed. Jabbar’s subsequent whereabouts remain unclear for the family.
MP calls for CM’s intervention
Police sources said Jabbar and his sons were kept in a detention facility for a few days before being handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF).
Also read: Bengal BJP chief rejects Bageshwar Baba’s call to shun non-veg during Durga Puja
Jangipur MP Khalilur Rahman also told The Federal that the police administration conveyed to him that Jabbar and his sons were kept in a detention camp before being handed over to the BSF. Jabbar’s wife suspects that they were pushed back into Bangladesh, although that allegation requires independent confirmation. Rahman said the case raises concerns about people being harassed or wrongly identified as Bangladeshis despite their names appearing on the SIR list, and that he has sought an appointment with Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari for his intervention to stop such harassment of genuine Indian citizens.
He said he was collecting more details about the incident and the circumstances behind it.
Jalil Akhtar’s case
Human rights groups have also taken note of the Jabbar case. Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha’s (MASUM) Kirity Roy said the organisation was collecting details about his detention and alleged pushback.
Jabbar is not the only case raising concerns about the SIR’s futility in protecting people from being wrongly identified as Bangladeshis.
A similar concern has been raised in another case involving 66-year-old Jalil Akhtar of Uttar Dinajpur. According to his family and the rights group MASUM, Akhtar’s name remained on the electoral roll after the SIR and he voted in the 2026 Assembly election.
Yet he was picked up from his home in Bagrail village under Dalkhola police station around midnight on July 19-20 on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national.
In its September 5 written complaint to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Supreme Court and the West Bengal government, MASUM said police records subsequently described Akhtar as a 70-year-old Bangladeshi national from Thakurgaon district, with discrepancies in his name, father’s name, age and address.
Jalil Akhtar (left) and his voter slip from the 2026 Assembly elections.
The organisation further alleged that police and intelligence personnel, accompanied by BSF personnel, took him towards an isolated stretch of the international border, apparently intending to push him into Bangladesh. The family later learnt that Akhtar was being kept at the Nizampur holding centre, prompting them to approach the police and administrative officials, Matiur Rahman, a relative of Akhtar, said over phone.
Police later registered a case against Akhtar and produced him before the Islampur court on July 22 as an alleged illegal Bangladeshi national. At a September 2 hearing before the additional chief judicial magistrate in Islampur, the investigating officer confirmed the authenticity of his voter ID, PAN card and entries in the 1995 and 2002 electoral rolls, while verification of his Aadhaar card was still pending.
Akhtar has not yet been granted bail, with the next hearing scheduled for September 10.
APDR asks authorities to explain
Ranjit Sur, leader of the Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), said the issue was not whether inclusion in the electoral roll amounted to a legal certificate of citizenship, but what the SIR was supposed to establish.
“If the government conducts an intensive revision of the electoral rolls to identify and remove foreign nationals, and a person’s name survives that scrutiny, the same person cannot subsequently be treated as a Bangladeshi without a clear explanation,” Sur said.
He said authorities must explain how someone who remained on the voter list after the SIR could subsequently be identified as a foreign national. “The government cannot keep shifting the narratives. If the SIR was meant to identify ineligible voters, what does it mean when people who survived the exercise are later detained as suspected Bangladeshis?” he asked.
Advocate Shamim Ahmed, who has been involved in legal challenges relating to the SIR process, said that where a person’s electoral status is clear, authorities should treat the individual as an Indian citizen unless there is evidence to the contrary.
“What has been done in these cases is illegal,” he added.
“Conversely, deletion of a person’s name from the electoral roll does not automatically establish that the individual is a foreign national,” he said, pointing out that a large majority of deleted voters whose cases were scrutinised by tribunals had their names restored.
Of the 38.1 lakh appeals filed before tribunals against SIR deletions, around 83,000 had been decided as of August 25. Of these, nearly 75,000 resulted in the restoration of voters’ names to the electoral rolls. This means about 90.4 per cent of the appeals heard had resulted in inclusion.
