Police in Rajasthan say they have sent a team of officials to West Bengal to verify whether fifty-one Bengali-speakers detained in Jaipur earlier this week are Indian citizens, as they claim.

A police superintendent in Jaipur Pradip Vyas says the group were detained after becoming involved in clashes near Jaipur and are suspected to be Bangladeshi nationals.

A BBC correspondent in Jaipur says Hindu nationalist organisations --like Shiv Sena and Vishwa Hindu Parishad -- continually pressurise the government to find and deport Bengalis in Rajasthan whom they believe to be non-Indian citizens.

But the West Bengal government says that sometimes Bengali-speaking Indian citizens have been unfairly targetted.

Officials in the Indian Border Security Force say more than four hundred Bangladeshis were captured last year trying to cross India on their way to Pakistan.