In India’s northeastern state of Assam, a brutal campaign of displacement is underway. Thousands of families, mostly Bengali-origin Muslims, have been stripped of their homes, their communities and their place in the only country they have ever known. Yet, the dire humanitarian crisis has barely received attention beyond India’s borders.

Since early June, the state government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party has forcibly evicted nearly 6,000 Bengali-origin Muslim families, displacing men, women and children. Bulldozers have flattened homes, mosques and small businesses. Entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, leaving tens of thousands homeless and huddled under tarpaulin sheets in the monsoon rains. On July 17, during an eviction drive, local police opened fire on protesters, killing a 19-year-old Muslim youth and injuring several others.

These evictions and demolitions violate both Indian and international human rights law. They are creating a new class of internally displaced people who are stateless in practice if not yet in law within India’s borders. These evictions and demolitions serve two purposes: to punish a minority population and to send a message, broadcast through social media and news footage of shattered homes and families sleeping under open skies, that Bengali Muslims in Assam can never be secure, no matter how many generations they’ve lived there.