The crackdown began while India was still locked in a conflict with Pakistan. Starting May, across several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party, the police began a hunt for undocumented migrants from Bangladesh. Thousands of Bengali-speaking workers were rounded up and questioned. Hundreds were quietly flown to the border and pushed into Bangladesh. Among them were Mehebub Sheikh, a mason working in Mumbai, Amir Sekh, a construction worker toiling in Rajasthan, and Sunali Khatun, a domestic worker living in Delhi. As videos surfaced from Bangladesh, showing them stranded across the border, their families in West Bengal raised an outcry. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Modi government of unleashing an attack on Bengalis.
But are Mehebub, Amir and Sunali actually Indian citizens wrongly deported to Bangladesh?
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