The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday quashed the detention order against a school bus driver who was held in Bengaluru after the police alleged that he was an undocumented Bangladeshi migrant, The Indian Express reported.

The order was passed after the Election Commission told the court that the voter identity card issued to Rafikul Biswas during the special intensive revision of electoral rolls was genuine and that his family had been living in India for generations, the newspaper reported.

Biswas was detained in August 2025. He had told Scroll at the time that he was from West Bengal’s Nadia district and had been living in Bengaluru for more than seven years with his wife and daughter. He had stated that the police were threatening to deport him to Bangladesh.

Days after he was detained, Biswas was hospitalised following a heart attack. He was released in December on medical grounds after another cardiac episode.

The 32-year-old had records showing that he is an Indian citizen by birth and was issued a fresh voter identity card in the special intensive revision of Bengal’s electoral rolls. Inquiries conducted by the police and the block development officer in Nadia in October had also found that Biswas is an Indian citizen.

On July 13, the High Court criticised the West Bengal government for requesting more time to examine the matter. After the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in the state following the Assembly elections in May, the new authorities wanted to review the document submitted before the court.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Since the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam in April 2025, the police in several states, most of them ruled by the BJP, have been detaining Bengali-speaking persons – mostly Muslims – and asking them to prove that they are Indian citizens.

Several persons have been forced into Bangladesh after they allegedly could not prove their Indian citizenship. In some cases, persons who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh returned to the country after the state authorities in India proved that they were Indians.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

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