A Bangladesh court in its recent order declared the eight-month pregnant woman Sunali Khatun and five others, including three children, as Indian citizens and directed the Indian High Commission in Dhaka to take steps to repatriate them to India.
The order, passed by a senior judicial magistrate of a court in Chapai Nawabganj, Bangladesh, on September 30, clearly mentioned the Indian Aadhaar card numbers of the deported persons as proof of their residence in India before instructing the Indian High Commission about their repatriation.
“Upon reviewing the FIR, it further appears that all the accused are citizens of India holding valid Aadhaar cards, and that one of the accused, Sunali Khatun, is a pregnant woman. Two minor children are also with them,” the Bangladesh court order stated.
“In these circumstances, in accordance with the prayer of the learned public prosecutor, it appears to this Court that it is necessary to inform the Indian High Commission in Bangladesh, located at Plot No. 1–3, Park Road, Baridhara, Dhaka–1212, to take steps to repatriate the accused to India as per law and to complete other necessary formalities,” the order added.
Sunali Khatun and Sweety Biwi, both residents of Birbhum, along with four others, were allegedly deported to Bangladesh in June this year after they were branded by Delhi police as infiltrators from Bangladesh. After a prolonged legal battle, Calcutta High Court on September 26 directed the Union government to bring them back within four weeks.
The Bangladesh court’s order has given the Trinamool Congress a new weapon to attack the BJP over what it calls the saffron party’s “anti-Bengali” narrative and atrocities on Bengali-speaking Indian citizens in BJP-ruled states.
“The Bangladesh court order not only established those deported persons as Indians but also directed the Indian High Commission in Dhaka to make arrangements to send them back to India. This order once again proves how innocent Bengali-speaking poor migrant workers were sent to Bangladesh after being falsely branded as foreigners,” said Trinamool Rajya Sabha member Samirul Islam.
“The order by Calcutta High Court and now by a court in Bangladesh proves one thing — those poor people were wrongly deported. The Trinamool Congress, under the leadership of chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the party’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee, will continue its fight until the BJP’s ill motive comes to an end,” added Islam, who is also the chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board.
The deportation of Sunali and others became a political issue in Bengal after Trinamool claimed that those people were Indian citizens who became victims of the BJP’s vindictive, anti-Bengali politics, resulting in the illegal deportation of migrant workers employed in Delhi.
The families of Sunali and Sweety, both from Birbhum, had approached the high court, asserting that the two were Indian citizens who had been falsely branded as Bangladeshis and sent to a country to which they did not belong.
“Their own country left no stone unturned to prove that those poor migrant workers were Bangladeshis. Now the Bangladesh court has confirmed that they are Indians. This will become a political weapon for us to show how the BJP is anti-Bengal,” said a Trinamool leader.
A division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Kumar Mitra on September 26 set aside the central government’s order to deport Sunali, along with her husband and minor son. The court issued the same directive for Sweety and her two minor children, who had been deported to Bangladesh along with Sunali after being detained in Delhi on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals.
“The deported persons must be brought back to the country within four weeks of the communication of the court order,” said Justice Chakraborty, senior judge of the division bench.
A family member of Sunali in Birbhum said they were yet to know when she and the others would return home from Bangladesh, as there had been no proper communication from Indian authorities.
“Calcutta High Court found the entire process of deportation wrong, which is why it instructed the central government to bring them back within four weeks. Now the Bangladesh court has confirmed that they are Indian citizens. Both court orders prove that these women were not Bangladeshis,” said Raghunath Chakraborty, counsel for the petitioner in the high court.
However, family members of the deported persons remain concerned that the central government might once again move the Supreme Court of India against the high court order.
BJP leaders said that the deportation of Sunali might have been a mistake, but Trinamool couldn't justify the infiltration of thousands of illegal immigrants — particularly Bangladeshi Muslims and Rohingyas — using this one example.
Trinamool has accused the BJP-ruled Assam government of sending NRC notices to two residents of Nadia. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday also raised her voice against the issuance of NRC notices to the two residents amid the festive season.