On 23 December 2025, in Kaushambi, Ghaziabad, Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel and some police officers entered a cluster of shanties. They asked the residents:
“Are you Bangladeshi? Put the machine on your back. The machine is showing you as Bangladeshi.”
There is currently an ongoing campaign to find illegal Bangladeshi nationals, Rohingya refugees, and undocumented citizens. Operations like Operation Torch or Operation Intruder have been launched, with police visiting slums to identify alleged illegal residents. The impact, however, is being felt even by India’s own citizens.
Across Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, Muslims from Assam are being viewed with suspicion, and Bengali-speaking people are being accused of being Bangladeshis.
Were Bangladeshis Really Found?
After a video of the 23 December incident went viral, The Quint team visited Ghaziabad’s Kaushambi and Bohapur areas, where the police search had taken place. There we met Roshni Khatun, who appears in the video.
Roshni, originally from Araria district in Bihar, has lived in the area for 14–15 years. She said police asked her family for her IDs and mockingly called her a Bangladeshi, spreading fear in the entire settlement. She added that the police themselves shot and circulated the video and they didn’t even know what was happening.
Police placed a mobile on my back and said ‘the machine is telling you are Bangladeshi — tell us the truth, are you Bangladeshi or Indian?’ When they placed the phone on my back, I said I’m not Bangladeshi, I’m Indian.Mohammad Kaiser Alam, Roshni's brother
Kaiser added that since that day no police have returned, but media has. Some journalists were polite, he said, but others were rude, asking intrusive questions about why they lived there and who they paid rent to.
Police Action and Official Position
After the video went viral, the ACP of Indirapuram said the SHO shown in it, Ajay Kumar Sharma, had been strictly warned. The ACP said the video was from a routine area domination exercise, where residents of temporary settlements and slums were being questioned and verified. The SHO was talking with residents, and was warned not to repeat such behaviour. An investigation and further action are underway.
This was a normal check. We were not investigating Bangladeshi infiltrators. There was no abuse or threats. These kinds of checks happen every five, ten or fifteen days. During this, it’s checked if anyone suspicious is living here, is under a court order, is a history-sheeter, or has committed a crime elsewhere and is hiding here.Ajay Sharma, SHO
‘They Came From Bengal for Work, Not Bangladesh’
The Quint team also visited a slum in Bhovapur, Kaushambi, where most residents are migrant labourers from Bihar and Bengal. They too said police were interrogating people in the name of finding Bangladeshis. One resident said police had visited with CRPF personnel who were conducting a search.
While these people are having to prove their citizenship, they live without basic facilities such as drinking water and toilets. They haul water from far away in drums, and have to pay every time they use a toilet.
This situation shows that the poorest sections of society often suffer most in campaigns conducted in the name of security and identity.