GOALPARA: Authorities in India`s Assam state have bulldozed thousands of homes belonging to Bengali-speaking Muslims in recent weeks, in the most intense crackdown in decades ahead of state elections where Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks re-election.

With their homes reduced to rubble, hundreds of Muslim men, women and babies sheltering under blue tarpaulins near the Bangladesh border.

The crackdown is part of abroader campaign by Assam`s BJP government to evict people it accuses of illegally occupying government land.

`The government repeatedly harasses us,` said Aran Ali, 53, speaking outside a patch of bare earth in Assam`s Goalpara district that has become the makeshift home for his family of three.

`We are accused of being encroachers and foreigners,` Ali said, who was born in Assam, as the scorching July sun beat down on the settlement.

Assam, which shares a 262-kilometer border with Bangladesh, has long grappled with anti-immigrant sentiments rooted in fears that Bengali migrants-both Hindus and Muslims-would overwhelm the local culture and economy.

Weaponising religion Assam`s firebrand Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, among BJPleaders accused of fomenting religious discord to stir populist sentiments ahead of polls, says `Muslim infiltrators from Bangladesh` threaten India`s identity.

`We are fearlessly resisting the ongoing,uncheckedMusliminfiltration from across the border, which has already caused an alarming demographic shift,` Sarma recently posted on X.

`In several districts, Hindus are now on the verge of becoming a minority in their own land.

Sarma told reporters last week that migrant Muslims make up 30 per cent of Assam`s 31 million population as ofthe 2011census.

`In a few years from now, Assam`s minority population will be close to 50pc,` he said.

The surge in evictions follows a deadly attack in April on Hindu tourists in India-held Kashmir, blamed on `terrorists` from Pakistan a charge Islamabad denies. BJP-ruled states have since rounded up thousands of Bengali Muslims, calling them suspected `illegalimmigrants` and apotential security risk.

Analysts say the deteriorating New Delhi-Dhaka relations postSheikh Hasina`s ouster have heightened anti-Bengali Muslim sentiments, providing the BJP a political tool for votes.

`Bengali-speaking Muslims, regardless oftheirlegalstatus,have become vulnerable targets for rightwing groups in India,` said PraveenDonthi, senior analyst at International Crisis Group.

`Discriminatory policies` Indian opposition leaders have accused Sarma of using the evictions and expulsions to polarise voters ahead of elections.

`These measures are politically beneficial and profitable for the BJP,` said Akhil Gogoi, an opposition lawmaker.

The opposition Congress party, defeated in the 2016 Assam election, pledged to rebuild demolished houses and jail those responsible if re-elected. According to Reuters, Bengali is the main language of Muslim-majority Bangladesh and is also widely spoken in parts of India.

States including Assam have also `pushed back` hundreds of Bengali Muslims into Bangladesh.

Such people are typically longterm residents with families and land, and activists say many of them are often wrongly classified as foreigners and are too poor to challenge tribunal judgments.

New Delhi said in 2016 that around 20 million illegal Bangladeshi migrants were living in India.

`The Indian government is putting thousands of vulnerable people at risk in apparent pursuit of unauthorised immigrants, but their actions reflect broader discriminatory policies against Muslims,` said Elaine Pearson, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.-Reuters