For decades, Hindu Bengali refugees who migrated to India from present-day Bangladesh settled across several states, building new lives. Today, citizenship verification processes in Assam have brought renewed scrutiny to questions of identity and nationality, requiring many residents to establish their legal status through documentary evidence.

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Many indigenous Muslim residents of Assam have been wrongly identified as illegal immigrants during citizenship verification processes, leading to prolonged legal battles and, in some cases, detention while their status remains under review.

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One prominent symbol of this debate is the detention centre under construction at Goalpara, Assam. Spread across an area equivalent to nearly twenty football fields, it is among the largest in Asia.