New Delhi, India – Indian officers have floated a controversial plan to introduce apex predators reminiscent of crocodiles and venomous snakes into riverine stretches alongside the Bangladesh border, to behave as pure deterrents in opposition to 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 inconceivable to fence.
In an inside communication dated March 26, India’s Border Safety Drive (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 weak 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 either side of the border – and for the ecosystem of the area?
Why does India’s border pressure wish 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 practically 3,000km of the border. However the remaining stretches embrace marshy and riverine areas with native populations residing on both aspect.
In its current communication, the BSF directed its frontier items to look at “strict compliance” by “exploring use of reptiles in riverine gaps”. The officers had been additionally instructed to share “motion taken” after receiving the route. This was first reported by Northeast Information, a regional publication.
The Ministry of House Affairs famous in its report final yr that, regardless of the punishing terrain, the BSF has diligently carried out its obligation to curb unlawful cross-border actions and undocumented migration from Bangladesh.
That report additionally famous: “Some drawback areas reminiscent of riverine/low-lying areas, habitations near the border, pending land acquisition circumstances 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 reminiscent of 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?”
Taking a look at it objectively, argued Choudhury, “when you launch venomous snakes and crocodiles, they gained’t be capable to differentiate if it’s a Bangladeshi or Indian”.
“That is peak cruelty in opposition to and dehumanisation of undocumented immigrants. An entire new manner of weaponising nature and animals in opposition to human beings. It’s biopolitical violence of a brand new type.”
“It’s the Achilles’ heel within the India-Bangladesh border: the river,” he informed 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 inconceivable 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 risk as a result of they modify the demographics of India.
Human rights observers say Modi’s authorities has used this rhetoric to harass spiritual 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 folks 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 aren’t 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 participating with Bangladesh’s authorities and following the judicial course of at hand 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 considered one of each cruelty and the defiance of the structure and worldwide rules,” Mander informed 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 be a manner of repeatedly holding Bengali Muslims within the sense of ongoing dread that they may be 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 underneath the Foreigners Act of 1946.
Choudhury stated he has labored on many circumstances 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 will not be native to the riverine stretches alongside the India-Bangladesh border, Rathin Barman, chief of technique and liaison on the Wildlife Belief of India, informed 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 could 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 in opposition to “any manipulation to the pure distribution vary of species”.
“If we do impose [this], it could intervene in your entire chain or ecosystem,” Barman stated. “I’m involved about different creatures who’ve equal rights to reside on this world and in these stretches.
“Technically, it’s positively not advisable,” he added. “It’ll positively by no means work in an open, flowing river.”
The swampy stretches alongside the India-Bangladesh border are additionally susceptible to flooding, which may lead to toxic snakes spreading into residential areas, exposing the native communities, significantly these concerned in fishing, to grave threat.
“This type of coverage displays the Indian state’s cruelty,” stated Mander, the human rights activist. “There’s no cause to show an undocumented immigrant in a river to crocodiles and snakes, or the specter of gunpoint.”
“These animals can’t do what the Indian state is unable to: to establish who’s an ‘unlawful infiltrator’,” he added. “They’ll, after all, assault the native inhabitants on both aspect.”
Has this been achieved wherever else on the planet?
There is no such thing as a fashionable 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 crammed with snakes or alligators, and capturing folks within the legs.
He denied the experiences, saying, “I could also be robust on Border Safety, however not that robust,” and known as it “Pretend Information!”
Nevertheless, 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 assist Trump.
The place obtained its nickname for its distant, swamp-like location, the place the terrain, believed to host predators, acts as a fringe that makes escape inconceivable. The centre has turn into infamous for inhumane circumstances and has confronted criticism for harming the delicate Everglades ecosystem, famous Amnesty Worldwide, which has known as for it to be shut down.
