A diplomatic row is unfolding on two opposite corners of north Bengal with India's neighbours Bhutan and Nepal refusing to accept ownership of 10 individuals who were deported by the US via India last week.

Sources said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the US government had deported 10 individuals who had been arrested in the country for various crimes to Bhutan.

The individuals were flown through New Delhi. From the Delhi airport, they were flown to the Paro International Airport in Bhutan.

“They then landed at the Paro airport in Bhutan on Thursday but the Bhutanese authorities refused to accept them as their citizens. They were then driven for more than six hours and pushed into India,” said a source who had managed to speak to one of the deportees.

These 10 individuals were pushed inside India through Jaigaon town in Bengal's Alipurduar, which borders Bhutan's Phuentsholing, on Friday morning. However, they could not stay in India. They entered Nepal on Friday night. It is not yet clear how they did so.

Indian security agencies did not confirm if they had a hand in sending the 10 deportees to Nepal.

Sources said that when three of these deportees reached Nepal, they were arrested by the Nepal police on Saturday.

The arrested trio claimed that they paid money to an Indian middleman to enter Nepal.

Kathmandu Post, a leading newspaper published from the Nepal capital, has identified the three arrested as Ashish Subedi, Santosh Darji and Roshan Tamang.

They reportedly had entered Nepal and reached one of the three Beldangi refugee settlements in Damak, Jhapa district, when they were arrested by police on Saturday afternoon.

A source in Nepal said that the arrested trio were in the custody of Nepal’s immigration department.

“Basically, the three individuals have entered Nepal without valid documents,” said the source.

The whereabouts of the seven other refugees are not yet known.

“The three who have been arrested later said they broke away in groups. The trio alleged they paid ₹10,000 each to an Indian middleman to enter Nepal," the source added.

"In Nepal, they were arrested. They said they were not sure where the seven were,” the source said.

The complication traces its history to the late 1980s when Nepali-speaking people living mostly in Southern Bhutan were expelled from the country under Bhutan’s “one nation, one people”, policy, unless stringent citizenship criteria were met. Over 1.3 lakh people were pushed to Nepal through India and started staying in refugee camps in eastern Nepal.

“Over the years the United Nations facilitated the resettlement of over 1.13 lakh Bhutanese refugees to eight countries, including the US, some European countries and Australia,” the source said, adding most were resettled in the US.

With the Donald Trump administration taking punitive steps against immigrants, many “Bhutanese refugees” are being deported to their “original country".