Assam: 'I was pushed across the border into Bangladesh at gunpoint'

The BBC met people in India's Assam who say they were accused of being illegal immigrants and forced across the border.

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The 58-year-old, a resident of Barpeta district in India's north-eastern state of Assam, says that she was called to the local police station on 25 May and later taken to a point at the border with neighbouring Bangladesh. From there, she says, she and around 13 other people were forced to cross over to Bangladesh.

She says she was not told why. But it was a scenario she had been dreading - Ms Banu says she has lived in Assam all her life but for the past few years, she has been desperately trying to prove that she is an Indian citizen and not an "illegal immigrant" from Bangladesh.

"They pushed me over at gunpoint. I spent two days without food or water in the middle of a field in knee-deep water teeming with mosquitoes and leeches," Ms Banu said, wiping away tears. After those two days in no man's land - between India and Bangladesh - she says she was taken to what appeared to be an old prison on the Bangladeshi side.

After two days there, she and a few others - she is not sure if all of them were from the same group sent with her - were escorted by Bangladeshi officials across the border, where Indian officials allegedly met them and sent them home.