Jammu and Kashmir flies 150 people to Bagdogra for deportation to Bangladesh

Jammu and Kashmir on Monday flew about 150 people described as Bangladeshi nationals to Bagdogra in West Bengal, the first batch in a deportation drive after a police survey of the Valley. Officials said the group went on a special Indian Air Force aircraft and was handed to the Border Security Force. A further batch of about 150 is scheduled for 7 October.

The numbers are not identical across the two main accounts, and the gap should stay visible. Mathrubhumi, citing officials, said about 600 Bangladeshi nationals had been identified in the Valley, that 150 were moved on Monday, and that 150 more would follow on 7 October. The Indian Express, citing police sources, said about 500 people, mostly from Bangladesh, had been detained and shifted to a facility on the outskirts of Srinagar, and that the Bagdogra group would be deported on 7 October. Both agree on the aircraft, the destination, and the BSF handover.

A camp, then a flight

Police sources told the Express the survey was a special exercise over recent days. Most of those detained, an officer said, had lived in different parts of the Kashmir Valley for many years. They were held at a camp run by Srinagar police before the flight to Bagdogra. The BSF is the force that would carry out any push across the Bangladesh border. Monday’s flight is the transfer to that force, not itself the border crossing.

The drive sits inside a wider Centre-led check on illegal immigration and demographic change. A high-level panel has asked states and union territories for data. During an earlier visit to Jammu and Kashmir, that committee was told there were 7,656 Rohingya and 504 Bangladeshi nationals in the union territory: 6,737 Rohingya and 46 Bangladeshi immigrants in Jammu, and 919 Rohingya and 458 Bangladeshi nationals in the Valley. Monday’s batch is drawn from the Bangladeshi count, not from the Rohingya figure. The two groups are under different legal arguments, and the administration has not said the Rohingya number is part of this week’s flights.

Identification is not a court finding

The people on the aircraft are described by officials and police as illegal immigrants. The public record available on Monday does not include individual orders, nationality documents, or a count of how many contested the finding. A police survey and a camp on the edge of Srinagar are the process the sources describe. Deportation through the BSF at the Bangladesh border is the step they say comes next, on 7 October for the first group in one account, and for the handover group in the other.

The 500 and 600 figures can be reconciled only by the authorities who hold the list. Until they publish it, the working numbers are these: a flight of about 150 on Monday, another flight of about 150 planned for Wednesday, and a detained pool of about 500 to 600. The older committee briefing, 504 Bangladeshi nationals in the whole union territory, is close to the lower police figure and well below 600. Either the survey has found people the earlier briefing missed, or the two counts are using different tests. That is a question the administration has not answered in the copy from Monday.

What Wednesday is for

The next dated event is 7 October. If the officials quoted by Mathrubhumi are right, a second aircraft takes another 150 people to Bagdogra. If the police sources quoted by the Express are right, 7 October is when the BSF moves the first group across the border. Both can happen on the same day. Neither has happened yet.

For the Valley, the new fact is the method: a survey, a camp outside Srinagar, an Air Force flight to north Bengal, and a handover to the border force. The legal fate of each person on the list is not in the communique.