'Why not Sheikh Hasina?': Hyderabad MP questions Modi govt's plan on deporting Bangladeshis

Asaduddin Owaisi, leader of All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) today (21 August) said that if the Indian government intended to deport illegal Bangladeshi nationals, it should begin with deposed former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who has been in India since her government was ousted in August last year.

"Why are we keeping that deposed leader in the country? Send her back. She is also a Bangladeshi, isn't she?" Owaisi said in an interview with The Indian Express, reports Hindustan Times.

The AIMIM chief's remarks came as he responded to questions on the alleged targeting of Bengali migrants across India.

He claimed that "poor Bengali-speaking Indians from Malda and Murshidabad" were being sent back from Pune to Kolkata and "dumped in no man's land," while India was providing shelter to "one Bangladeshi living in our country and creating problems by giving statements and speeches."

The Hyderabad Lok Sabha member also alleged that police in different parts of India have been illegally detaining "Bengali-speaking Muslim citizens," accusing them of being Bangladeshi, and that there have been "disturbing reports" of Indian citizens being sent to Bangladesh "at gunpoint."

He described these individuals as "the poorest of the poor," who are mostly slum-dwellers working as domestic workers and ragpickers.

Owaisi said they have been "targeted repeatedly because they are not in a position to challenge police atrocities."

"Police do not have the power to detain people just because they speak a particular language. These wide-net detentions are illegal," he had asserted, recalling a previous post on X where he condemned a similar order by a district magistrate in India's Gurugram.