Guwahati: Assam police have deported 13 more Bangladeshi infiltrators living illegally in the state in a fresh deportation operation carried out on July 27.
Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma confirmed the action, framing it as part of a larger, ongoing effort. He called it the state’s “Detect, Delete, Deport” mechanism, a system built to identify illegal foreigners and remove them through legal channels.
“Thirteen individuals have been identified and appropriate action has been taken to deal with them in accordance with law,” CM Sarma said. He added that the government would continue acting firmly against anyone considered a threat to Assam’s security.
CM Sarma recently revealed in the ongoing budget session of Assam assembly that the state has detected 1,72,673 illegal foreigners so far under the Assam Accord. Of these, 31,789 have already been repatriated from the state. Interestingly over 1 lakh 40 thousand detected Bangladeshi are still missing in the state.
He was responding to a written question from AGP MLA Diptimayee Choudhury. As the Home Minister of the state CM Sarma said that the process is very difficult but state machinery is working on it. According to his reply, 470 people were formally deported, 29,663 were pushed back across the border, 1,572 were sent back on instructions from the Union Home Ministry, and another 84 were expelled.
Replying to a written question in the assembly Congress MLA Mohibur Rohman during Question Hour on July 8, Atul Bora, Minister for Border Protection and Development said that Foreigners Tribunals across the state declared 36,358 people as foreigners between 2021 and May 31 2026. Of that group, 2,494 were classified as pre-1971 foreigners, while the remaining 33,864 fell into the post-1971 category.
Breaking it down year by year, the tribunals declared:- 7,151 foreigners in 2021- 9,028 in 2022- 6,859 in 2023- 6,178 in 2024- 5,106 in 2025. 2,036 so far in 2026, up to May 31
Despite the large number of people declared as foreigners, minister Bora pointed out that actual deportations to Bangladesh have been comparatively low. Between 2021 and June 30 this year, only 196 declared foreigners were deported, sent back, or expelled to Bangladesh. The yearly breakdown looked like this: one person each in 2021, 2022, and 2023, followed by a sharp jump to 126 in 2025, and 67 more by mid-2026.
Minister Atul Bora also addressed a separate but related issue, the status of “D” voters, a category used to flag people whose citizenship is doubtful.
He said Assam currently has 91,385 individuals marked as D voters. Alongside this, a significant backlog remains in the legal system: as of May 31, 2026, 41,059 D voter cases are still pending before the state’s various Foreigners Tribunals.
