Asma and Shajahan’s son Jihad Hussein Obama at the Dinhata hospital on Tuesday. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti

Cooch Behar, March 30: A woman in labour from a Bangladeshi enclave has put the district administration in a spot by getting admitted to a hospital and declaring herself as an illegal entrant before giving birth to a boy last evening.

Asma Bibi, 25, was brought to the Dinhata subdivisional hospital from the Bangladeshi enclave of Masaldanga, about 15km from Dinhata town, by her husband, Shajahan Sheikh. “Yesterday evening my wife suddenly went into labour, I didn’t know what to do. I was frantically looking for a midwife. When I contacted the leaders of the India Bangladesh Enclave Exchange Co-ordination Committee, they advised me to take her to the hospital at Dinhata. I admitted her around 6pm. Soon she gave birth to a boy,” Shajahan said.

The enclaves are Bangladeshi territory landlocked within India (which has 131 enclaves inside the neighbouring country). Although the 93 Bangladeshi enclaves in Cooch Behar district are not fenced in, their residents can be arrested under the Foreigners Act if they are caught on Indian land. So, even though the hospital took in the women writhing in pain, the authorities immediately informed police. Both the woman and her husband are now afraid that they might be arrested for illegal entry.

The superintendent of the Dinhata subdivisional hospital, N.C. Das, said the woman had been admitted on humanitarian grounds. “The mother and child are doing fine and we will discharge them after a couple of days. We have informed the administration. But we are yet to decide whether to issue a birth certificate,” Das said. The subdivisional officer of Dinhata, Chiranjib Ghosh, said it would have been inhuman had the hospital refused to admit the woman.

“What is the harm if we do not arrest them? After all, they are not criminals,” a senior officer said, hinting that the administration might turn a blind eye and allow the couple to return to the enclave.

When contacted in Calcutta, high court advocate Arunava Ghosh said under the Indian Constitution, any foreigner, criminal or otherwise, has the right to live. “In this case the hospital is bound to issue a birth certificate,” he said.

The assistant secretary of the enclave exchange committee, Diptiman Sengupta, threatened to launch a movement if the child, named Jihad Hussein Obama by the parents, was not granted a birth certificate by the Dinhata municipality, under whose jurisdiction the hospital falls.

“The health department has done its bit. Now the municipality should issue a birth certificate. If they do not, we will raise the issue. If the couple are arrested, we will launch an agitation,” Sengupta said.

A Forward Bloc councillor of the Dinhata municipality, Ranjit Saha, said the legalities of the case would have to be looked into before a decision was taken. “We had not faced this kind of crisis in the past. I cannot tell you what we should do without consulting our legal cell,” he said.

Sengupta said it was not that Asma was the first woman from a Bangladeshi enclave to enter Indian territory to give birth. “Those who enter take admission under false names. Indian citizens pose as their husbands. The women leave and do not collect the birth certificates, as they have no use for them. Shajahan did the right thing by not resorting to the world of lies. To highlight the plight of the enclave dwellers in front of an international audience, we will distribute sweets in the hospital tomorrow and take out a procession,” Sengupta said.