New Delhi, India – Indian officers have floated a controversial plan to introduce apex predators comparable to crocodiles and venomous snakes into riverine stretches alongside the Bangladesh border, to behave as pure deterrents towards undocumented migration and smuggling in locations the place erecting fencing is troublesome.
India’s 4,096km-long (2,545-mile) border with Bangladesh runs by some difficult terrain – and New Delhi has discovered some stretches not possible to fence.
In an inside communication dated March 26, India’s Border Safety Pressure (BSF), which patrols worldwide borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh, ordered personnel at its headquarters on the jap and northeastern fronts to discover “the feasibility of deploying reptiles in susceptible riverine gaps”.
The federal government’s newest transfer to fence the border with Bangladesh has alarmed human rights activists and wildlife conservationists alike in India.
What are the dangers of such a transfer for native communities on each side of the border – and for the ecosystem of the area?
Why does India’s border power need to deploy killer wildlife?
The India-Bangladesh border runs alongside the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram. There may be troublesome and unforgiving terrain in these areas, passing by hills, rivers and valleys.
New Delhi has fenced almost 3,000km of the border. However the remaining stretches embody marshy and riverine areas with native populations residing on both aspect.
In its current communication, the BSF directed its frontier models to watch “strict compliance” by “exploring use of reptiles in riverine gaps”. The officers had been additionally instructed to share “motion taken” after receiving the path. This was first reported by Northeast Information, a regional publication.
The Ministry of Residence Affairs famous in its report final yr that, regardless of the punishing terrain, the BSF has diligently carried out its responsibility to curb unlawful cross-border actions and undocumented migration from Bangladesh.
That report additionally famous: “Some drawback areas comparable to riverine/low-lying areas, habitations near the border, pending land acquisition instances and protests by the border inhabitants, have slowed down the set up of fencing in sure stretches on this border.”
Analysts and activists have expressed alarm on the prospect of harmful animals comparable to crocodiles getting used to discourage refugees and migrants.
“This could be hilarious if it weren’t sinister and harmful,” stated Angshuman Choudhury, a researcher with a concentrate on northeastern and jap Indian border states. “It’s absurd, proper?”
it objectively, argued Choudhury, “when you launch venomous snakes and crocodiles, they received’t be capable of differentiate if it’s a Bangladeshi or Indian”.
“That is peak cruelty towards and dehumanisation of undocumented immigrants. A complete new method of weaponising nature and animals towards human beings. It’s biopolitical violence of a brand new type.”
“It’s the Achilles’ heel within the India-Bangladesh border: the river,” he advised Al Jazeera. “This core impulse comes from the truth that the BSF has at all times discovered that the river on the border is virtually not possible to fence.”
What’s behind this concept?
India’s Hindu majoritarian authorities, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has lengthy argued that undocumented migrants are a menace as a result of they alter the demographics of India.
Human rights observers say Modi’s authorities has used this rhetoric to harass non secular minorities in India, particularly Bengali Muslims within the jap and northeastern elements of the nation.
The partition of British India in 1947 sliced by the area of Bengal, with individuals on both aspect of the border nonetheless sharing cultural and ethnic roots.
BSF officers have, on a number of events, made headlines for bodily pushing Indian Muslims into Bangladesh at gunpoint.
There are not any formal statistics on the variety of undocumented migrants in India. Whereas a brand new census was begun this month, the final one was undertaken in 2011.
Even when the variety of undocumented migrants is rising, stated Harsh Mander, a human rights activist, quite than partaking with Bangladesh’s authorities and following the judicial course of handy over undocumented immigrants, India has opted for “extrajudicial strategies” to take care of them.
Moreover, activists say India is utilizing this as an excuse to mete out unfair remedy to minorities, particularly Muslims, by conflating them with migrants.
“India’s strategy on the query of what they name ‘contested citizenship’ is certainly one of each cruelty and the defiance of the structure and worldwide rules,” Mander advised Al Jazeera, referring to the federal government’s drive to spherical up migrants however, in actuality, pushing Indian Muslims throughout the border and labelling them Bangladeshi.
“This [targeting Muslim Indians] can also be a method of repeatedly retaining Bengali Muslims within the sense of ongoing dread that they is perhaps stripped of citizenship and rendered stateless,” Mander added.
Within the state of Assam, for instance, Choudhury stated, India arrange overseas tribunal courts – quasi-judicial our bodies established to find out whether or not an individual suspected of being an unlawful migrant is a “foreigner” or an Indian citizen beneath the Foreigners Act of 1946.
Choudhury stated he has labored on many instances of Indians being declared “foreigners” in Assam and West Bengal “simply because they couldn’t produce paperwork [that proved their citizenship]”.
“These pressured expulsions are new border management mechanisms, that are very sinister,” Choudhury stated.
The notion of introducing crocodiles and venomous snakes into border areas is an extension of the identical coverage in direction of Indian Muslims, he stated.
How will crocodiles and toxic snakes have an effect on the native ecosystem?
Crocodiles are usually not native to the riverine stretches alongside the India-Bangladesh border, Rathin Barman, chief of technique and liaison on the Wildlife Belief of India, advised Al Jazeera.
A species of crocodile is discovered within the Sundarbans, in southern West Bengal, and one other within the restricted wetlands of Assam, removed from the border areas. If they’re moved to the border areas, they might not survive, Barman stated.
“Very first thing you recognize, they find yourself useless quickly,” he stated. “The identical goes for so-called venomous snakes.”
Barman warned towards “any manipulation to the pure distribution vary of species”.
“If we do impose [this], it might intervene in the complete chain or ecosystem,” Barman stated. “I’m involved about different creatures who’ve equal rights to stay on this world and in these stretches.
“Technically, it’s undoubtedly not advisable,” he added. “It can undoubtedly by no means work in an open, flowing river.”
The swampy stretches alongside the India-Bangladesh border are additionally vulnerable to flooding, which may end in toxic snakes spreading into residential areas, exposing the native communities, notably these concerned in fishing, to grave threat.
“This sort of coverage displays the Indian state’s cruelty,” stated Mander, the human rights activist. “There’s no purpose to show an undocumented immigrant in a river to crocodiles and snakes, or the specter of gunpoint.”
“These animals can not do what the Indian state is unable to: to determine who’s an ‘unlawful infiltrator’,” he added. “They may, in fact, assault the native inhabitants on both aspect.”
Has this been accomplished anyplace else on the earth?
There isn’t any trendy precedent for deploying pure predators to fence a global border.
United States President Donald Trump was reported to have mentioned concepts to discourage migrants throughout his first presidency, together with constructing a moat stuffed with snakes or alligators, and taking pictures individuals within the legs.
He denied the experiences, saying, “I could also be powerful on Border Safety, however not that powerful,” and known as it “Faux Information!”
Nonetheless, a comparability of types has arisen within the US. The South Florida Detention Facility opened to controversy in July 2025 and has been dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” by state officers, who help Trump.
The place acquired its nickname for its distant, swamp-like location, the place the terrain, believed to host predators, acts as a fringe that makes escape not possible. The centre has turn into infamous for inhumane situations and has confronted criticism for harming the delicate Everglades ecosystem, famous Amnesty Worldwide, which has known as for it to be shut down.
