Abhishek Banerjee on Tuesday met Sunali Khatun, who had been deported to Bangladesh and was repatriated to India in December following a Supreme Court order, at Rampurhat Hospital, and named her newborn son “Apon” at the request of the family.

In Bengali, Apon means someone who is a relative, very close to the heart or one’s own.

Sunali, who was deported in June last year and repatriated to India on December 5, gave birth to a boy on Monday at Rampurhat Medical College and Hospital. Abhishek, while congratulating her on social media, had promised to meet her at the hospital.

“Sunali and her mother requested me to name the child. At first, I told them that after so much suffering, they should name the child themselves. Still, they insisted, and I named the child ‘Apon’. I gave the name, keeping in mind that they had been pushed into Bangladesh as not being one of us. They are our people,” Abhishek, the national general secretary of the Trinamool Congress, said while speaking to reporters outside
the hospital.

“I will visit their home again after a few months. Today, Danish (Sunali’s husband)’s case was also heard in the Supreme Court. The Centre again sought time because they have nothing to say. We will do everything possible to bring Danish back,” he added.

Abhishek said that Sunali had elaborately informed him about the agony she had gone through over the past seven to eight months since she was deported while pregnant.

“Was speaking the Bengali language her crime? Her parents’ names were on the voters’ list in 2002. Even then, how was she forcibly branded as a Bangladeshi and pushed across the border?” he asked.

Sunali, a resident of Paikar village in Murarai, Birbhum, was detained in New Delhi by police and deported to Bangladesh, along with her eight-year-old son and five others, after being branded as Bangladeshi nationals. After spending in a Bangaldesh jail for nearly five months and a prolonged legal battle in Calcutta High Court and the Supreme Court, Sunali was finally brought back to India on humanitarian grounds along with her minor son on December 5.

However, the remaining four individuals, including two minors, are still in Bangladesh, and the hearing in the Supreme Court regarding their repatriation is scheduled for Tuesday.