Overview
- Authorities screened 350 to 400 individuals under a Home Ministry directive, confirming only ten as Bangladeshi nationals.
- Plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles have been detaining people based solely on speaking Bengali.
- Detainees spent two to five days in converted community centres with no clear legal redress or transparency.
- Fear of arbitrary detentions has sparked a silent exodus of Bengali-speaking workers, causing domestic service shortages.
- Human rights advocates warn that linguistic profiling conflates dialect with nationality and violates due process.