KOLKATA: In another life, Sunali Khatun could have been a version of Manto's Toba Tek Singh, a man with no country to call his own. Pushed into Bangladesh by police in India who labelled her an illegal immigrant, police in Bangladesh have now done the same thing to her — called her an illegal immigrant and jailed her. She is eight months pregnant.
Birbhum resident Sunali, expecting a child any time now, was escorted into a Bangladesh jail on Friday not knowing to which country her unborn baby would belong.The 26-year-old's Aadhaar and voter identity card hadn't saved her from being branded an "illegal immigrant" in Delhi, where she was working until recently. On Thursday, cops in Chapai Nawabganj arrested her based on those very identity documents.
Sunali, her ragpicker husband Danish Sheikh and the couple's toddler son Sabir are now among six "nowhere people" with roots in West Bengal but disowned by their country and incarcerated in Bangladesh. The others are Sweety Biwi and her sons Qurban Sheikh (16) and Imam Dewan (6).
The befuddled bunch had been living and working in Delhi's Rohini — earning just enough to keep afloat — when they were arrested during an "identity verification drive" and sent to Bangladesh through Assam on June 26.
"The group of six was arrested after they were found loitering in Chapai Nawabganj. They told us they were Indians who entered Bangladesh through the Kurigram border (in Assam), roamed the streets of Dhaka for some days, and then reached here. They didn't have a lawyer during Friday's court hearing," Chapai Nawabganj police superintendent Md Rezaul Karim told TOI on Friday.
Unless someone takes up cudgels for them, Sunali, her family and the rest of the group will remain in prison till the next hearing scheduled in Sept. Karim said all six had been charged under the Control of Entry Act, 1952.
Sunali's father Bhodu Sk, who has filed a habeas corpus in Calcutta high court, said it was shocking to even think that his heavily pregnant daughter might give birth in jail. "We are poor. We have moved the high court, what else can be done?" he said.
Arif Sk, a neighbour of the family in Bengal's Birbhum, said everyone has pooled in to try and arrange a lawyer in Bangladesh to bail out the group from their village.
Bhodu and co-petitioner Amir Khan, who is Sweety Khatun's cousin, said in their petition that what happened was a "betrayal of law". The high court is scheduled to hear the case on Sept 10.
A PIL has been filed in Supreme Court on the alleged harassment of Bengali-speaking migrants in India, including Sunali's "illegal deportation". The PIL has been listed for hearing on Aug 29.
Bengal migrant welfare board chairperson and Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam said, "We are making every effort to bring back Sunali and the others. We are also providing the family legal help."
Meanwhile, on Aug 13, 22-year-old Malda migrant labourer Amir Sheikh, who was pushed into Bangladesh on June 25, returned to India, his reappearance as mysterious as his disappearance from the country of his birth. Amir had been stuck in Bangladesh since June 25, prompting his father — Jiyem Sheikh — to file a habeas corpus in the HC. He said Rajasthan Police had arrested him for being a "Bangladeshi living in India illegally".
BSF told the court a couple of hours after Amir's return through the Basirhat border that he had crossed over to Bangladesh "inadvertently".
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