The West Bengal government has directed the creation of 'holding centres' in every district of the state to detain individuals suspected of being illegal immigrants — primarily Bangladeshis and Rohingyas — a senior state government official confirmed on Sunday, 25 May 2025. The move follows both a directive from Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari and an eight-page guideline issued by the Union Home Ministry's Foreigners Division on 2 May 2025.

What the Directive Says

According to the state government's order, suspects can be held at these centres for up to 30 days, during which their documents will be verified to establish whether they are Indian citizens. The directive covers not only those freshly arrested on suspicion of being infiltrators, but also those previously imprisoned and those already in the deportation pipeline.

The instruction has been dispatched from Nabanna — the state secretariat — to West Bengal Director General of Police Siddh Nath Gupta, all District Magistrates, all Superintendents of Police, and every police Commissionerate, including Kolkata. The final call on each case will rest with the concerned District Magistrate or District Collector-level officer.

The Centre's Role and Guidelines

The Union Home Ministry's 2 May 2025 guideline had already laid out the framework for holding centres. Under those guidelines, if a law enforcement officer suspects a person is not an Indian citizen, the individual can be arrested and detained at a holding centre for 30 days pending document verification.

The Centre has also asked every state to constitute a Special Task Force (STF) at the district level to identify and deport illegal immigrants. Once confirmed as infiltrators, detainees will have their biometric data collected and uploaded to a central portal before being handed over to the Border Guard. They will subsequently be blacklisted in India.

In emergency situations, the guidelines permit the Border Guard or Coast Guard to directly collect illegal immigrants from a holding centre and escort them across the border without further delay.

Political Context: BJP Government's Stance

Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari had recently addressed a press conference at Nabanna, asserting that the previous Trinamool Congress (TMC) government had not complied with the Centre's instructions on infiltrators. He stated that since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in the state, the relevant law is being enforced.

Adhikari specified that individuals not covered under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) would be identified, arrested, and handed directly to the Border Security Force (BSF), which would then process their return to their respective countries. The state government's holding-centre directive came in the immediate aftermath of this announcement.

The 'Detect, Delete, Deport' Policy

West Bengal has formally adopted a 'detect, delete and deport' policy for illegal immigrants, aligning the state's approach with the Centre's broader national framework. The holding centres are a structural component of this policy — providing a legally defined detention window before deportation proceedings are concluded.

Notably, this represents a significant policy shift for a state that had, under its previous administration, been criticised by the Centre for non-compliance on infiltrator identification. With district-level STFs, biometric blacklisting, and now physical holding infrastructure being put in place, the operational machinery for mass deportation is being assembled across West Bengal's districts.

How quickly the centres become functional — and how the 30-day verification window holds up under legal scrutiny — will determine the policy's real-world impact in the weeks ahead.