Behind a pair of green surgical curtains, 26 year old Sunali Khatoon There is difficulty in sitting with cross legs. It is difficult for her to bend her swollen legs at the knees while balancing her baby bump. Carefully shifting her balance, she adds some rice and hot chicken curry to a plate and sits next to her daughter. As her daughter gets excited to be fed by her, Sunali’s swollen fingers form rice balls with chicken pieces. Holding it in front of his daughter’s face, they both exchange a warm smile. This is an unspoken assurance that They are together now after almost six months,
Facing her eight- and six-year-old daughter and son, Sunali, who is nine months pregnant, struggles to string words together. “Who spends the day in the night and who spends the night in the night? (I don’t remember how days turned into nights and how weeks turned into months),” she says in Bengali. “All I remember is that I was worried about the child I had yet to give birth to and whom I had left behind in India,” she says, caressing her baby bump. For Sunali, being with a part of her family, close to her ancestral home in Birbhum’s Paikar village, is a big relief.
Sources say that the Home Ministry had given an order in August 2024 Nationwide action against Bangladeshi citizens Living illegally in India. During May and June 2025, in India after Pahalgam attackIt became intense; “National security” was cited as a reason.
In July, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report, “The Indian government has not provided any official data on the number of people expelled, but Border Guard Bangladesh reported that India expelled more than 1,500 Muslim men, women, and children to Bangladesh between May 7 and June 15, including about 100 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.”
surprise arrests
On June 18, when Sunali’s husband Danish Shaikh sat down to eat dinner at their rented house in Delhi’s Rohini, three police officers came to their hut asking about Bengali-speaking migrants. Danish, a scrap dealer who dealt in scrap; Their neighbor Sweety Bibi; And his two sons, aged 17 and six, were taken to the KN Katju Marg police station in the Indian capital.
Read this also Mamta Banerjee says that despite being an Indian, Sunali Khatoon was sent to Bangladesh.
“I got a call to bring Danish’s documents to the police station, but without doing any investigation they put me and my son behind bars,” says Sunali, adding that she also had her husband’s Aadhaar and voter ID card. That day his daughter was at a relative’s place.
Over the next few hours, Sunali alleged that Delhi Police pressured them to admit that they were Bangladeshi. “We told them that we were from Birbhum in West Bengal and working in Delhi, but no one listened,” she adds. He was reportedly sent to a confinement center on June 24.
She says six of them were allegedly taken from Delhi to Assam and pushed to the Bangladesh border on June 26. “During the entire journey, they did not give us food or water. When they pushed us into the forests, they threatened to shoot us if we did not cross,” says Sunali. “We walked through forests, crossed rivers, and when we first saw a hut, we knocked on the door to beg for alms,” she says, her voice trembling.
Sunali Khatoon’s ancestral home is in Paikar in Birbhum district of West Bengal. , Photo Courtesy: Alisha Dutta
Both the families explained to the villager that they had no money and no phone to contact anyone. She recalls how the man gave them some rice and curry to eat and allowed them to rest.
While the six Bengali migrants were helped by people from Kurigram, Bangladesh, locals suggested that they move away from the border villages and go to Dhaka in search of work to stay away from the border guards in Bangladesh. “They told us to do some work and then try to go back after a few weeks,” says Sunali. “But we were soon arrested from Alinagar (near Dhaka) and put behind bars in Chapainwabganj (district).” She says, much pleading and explaining did not help.
Reacting to the allegations leveled by the people who were pushed to Bangladesh, DCP (Rohini) Rajeev Ranjan says they were handed over to the Foreigners Regional Registration Office after failing to submit the required documents. “We have not forced anyone to admit that they are Bangladeshi. In any case, the matter is sub-judice.”
legal battle
For the next three months, the six men were in jail for illegally entering Bangladesh. He was booked under the Entry Control Act, 1952, which states, “No Indian citizen shall enter any part of Bangladesh unless he holds a passport bearing a visa authorizing the entry.”
It says anyone who violates it will be punished with imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to Taka 1,000 (Bangladeshi currency) or both.
Meanwhile, the pushing of these six migrants across the border, as well as the detention and so-called deportation of several other Bengali-speaking migrants, especially from Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states such as Haryana, Gujarat and Odisha, created an uproar in India.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, her ministers and workers of the ruling Trinamool Congress held rallies across the state in the middle of the year to protest the attacks, detentions and linguistic profiling of Bengali migrants working in other states.
Three months after Sunali, Sweety and their families were pushed to Bangladesh, the Calcutta High Court on September 26 quashed the Centre’s ‘deportation order’ and directed it to facilitate their return. The court heard writ petitions filed by Sunali’s father Bhodu Shaikh and Sweety’s brother Amir Khan. Bhodu says that his name was included in the West Bengal Special Intensive Care Act of 2002.
In its order, a division bench of Justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Ritobroto Kumar Mitra noted the violation of the provisions of the Home Ministry’s memorandum dated May 2, 2025. The memorandum said any alleged Bangladeshi or Myanmar nationals living illegally on Indian soil should be investigated by the state or union territory government before deportation.
The court said that the procedures set out in the memorandum should have been followed by the authorities and “rushing into deporting him is a clear violation which renders the deportation order bad in law and deserves to be quashed”. However, the central government later moved the Supreme Court challenging the Calcutta High Court order. Ultimately on December 3, the Center agreed to deport Sunali and her minor son on “humanitarian grounds” after the apex court intervened.
On December 1, when the Supreme Court first directed the Center to consider bringing back Sunali and her son, Bhodu had little faith. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lose hope until I saw my daughter walk through the door of my house,” he says.
On December 6, when Sunali and her son were brought back to their village, her father recalls, “My daughter’s face looked dull and she looked very weak, but I was happy.” Bhodu had previously expressed concern over her grandson’s nationality after Sunali gave birth in Bangladesh. He further added, “The doctors have examined Sunali and told us that she has some medical complications and is weak, but is completely fit to give birth to the child.”
The delivery ward of Rampurhat Government Medical College and Hospital where Sunali Khatoon has been admitted. , Photo Courtesy: Alisha Dutta
The Chief Minister of West Bengal termed it a victory for her state and the Trinamool Congress against the “anti-Bangla (anti-Bengal)” central government. “How are Indian citizens being called Bangladeshi? Was Sunali Khatoon Bangladeshi? She was Indian. Despite her having Indian (documents), you pushed her into Bangladesh through the Border Security Force,” Banerjee thundered on the stage at a rally in Malda, taking aim at the BJP-led central government when it decided to bring Sunali back.
Samirul Islam, a Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board, says his party did whatever was necessary – from providing legal resources to sending an envoy to Bangladesh to help bring back the six people.
those left behind
Despite the shelves stocked with bouquets and boxes of sweets inside Sunali’s maternity ward, the migrant workers are far from comfortable.
“When I was having my first bite of home-cooked food, I was reminded of the days when I lived without food in Bangladesh and was served inedible food in jail,” she says.
Running her fingers through her son’s hair, she describes how he often wakes up frightened in the middle of the night. She adds, “He has become very afraid of the dark; he doesn’t let any of us out of his sight.”
Now with only a few days left to give birth, Sunali thinks only about her husband who is still in Bangladesh. “They brought us back, but I’m worried what they’ll do with him. A father deserves to see his child born, right?”
On the other side of the border, Danish is worried about returning to his homeland. Speaking over telephone, he said he has been living and working in Delhi for more than a decade. “In our village in Birbhum, we can either get work as raj mistri (mason) or make beedis, but it is not enough to run the family,” he says.
Concerned about his future, he asks if it is a “crime to migrate for better work”. “They picked us up just because we spoke Bengali. Now, I’m in a different country and might not be able to see the birth of my child,” he said, crying.
Meanwhile, Sweety, who is awaiting repatriation with her two sons, is worried about surviving as a single mother in a country she says she does not know. In Fakirpara village of Birbhum, West Bengal, about 100 km from Chapainwabganj in Bangladesh, Sweety’s mother Nazina Bibi is worried about her daughter and grandchildren. Sweety’s middle child, who now lives in Paikar with Nazina, asks his grandmother every day about his mother’s return.
Sweety Bibi’s mother Najina Bibi sits in the courtyard of her partially constructed two-storey house in Fakirpur of Paikar gram panchayat in West Bengal’s Birbhum district. , Photo Credit: Moyuri Som
“Ever since they took away my child, I am not feeling well. In June, when she was being taken to Bangladesh, she somehow managed to make a phone call. That was the last time we spoke before they put her in jail in Bangladesh. All she could say to me was, ‘Mom, please save us; Mom, they are sending us away,'” says Nazina, sitting in the courtyard of her single-storey house. The second floor is under construction.
Behind him two women are making beedis. The sound of scissors shaping the leaves comes in a steady rhythm with Nazina’s words. Sweety’s women relatives in the joint family describe how in Paikar, the men from most households have migrated for work, while the women have stayed back. They make beedis for a modest income, not more than ₹1,000-₹1,200 per week. In some cases, like Sweety’s, multiple families migrate together, sometimes leaving only the elders behind.
Nazina says she can’t put a blanket over herself without worrying about how her daughter and grandchildren are coping with the cold in Bangladesh. “Tin tinte jaan (Three lives are at stake),” she says. “It’s getting colder now; I worry if they have enough stuff to stay warm.” She wonders why speaking Bengali led the police to believe they were Bangladeshi, when the entire West Bengal speaks this language.
alisa.d@thehindu.co.in
moyurie.som@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
