Who is Sunali Khatun? 26-year-old pregnant woman brought back from Bangladesh after SC order
Along with Sunali Khatun and her family, three people of another family were also deported to Bangladesh in June this year.
After a long legal battle, 26-year-old Sunali Khatun was brought back to India from Bangladesh on Friday, along with her eight-year-old son. She had been deported to Bangladesh earlier this year. Her return came two days after the Supreme Court nudged the government to bring her back on “humanitarian grounds”.
Now in her advanced stage of pregnancy, Khatun was brought back through the Mahadipur border in West Bengal’s Malda district and was rushed to Malda Medical College and Hospital for examination, according to the officers present at the border.
Who is Sunali Khatun?
Sunali Khatun is a 26-year-old pregnant woman who was deported to Bangladesh in June this year along with her minor son Sabir Sheikh and husband Danish Sheikh on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. They were picked from Delhi's Rohini on June 24, where she reportedly worked as a domestic help, and were deported to Bangladesh on June 26, Hindustan Times had reported earlier.
Along with Khatun and her family, three people of another family were also deported to Bangladesh. There, all six of them were arrested by Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) and jailed for crossing the border without proper travel documents.
The other family, according to Trinamool Congress, whose MP Samirul Islam is aiding the two families with legal assistance, includes Sweety Bibi, her husband Kurban Sheikh, and their son Imam Dewan. All six of them are residents of West Bengal's Birbhum, according to the party, and they were in Delhi in search of a job.
Soon after their deportation, Khatun's father Bhadu Sheikh and Sweety Bibi’s uncle Amir Khan approached the Calcutta high court for relief, which had ruled for them to be brought back on September 26. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court upheld the high court's decision while hearing a plea by the central government and observed that the case demanded humanity over technicalities.
Now that Khatun is back, she and her son will be taken to their village in the Paikar area of Birbhum as soon as possible of she is declared fit to travel by doctors, a West Bengal police officer told HT on the condition of anonymity.
‘A historic moment’
TMC MP Samirul Islam, who helped the families of the deportees throughout the process, said that the day of Khatun's return will be remembered as a “historic moment”.
"“Finally, after a long battle against the Bangla-Birodhi Zamindars, Sunali Khatun and her minor son have returned to India. This day will be remembered as a historic moment that exposes the torture and atrocities inflicted on poor Bengalis. Sunali, who was pregnant at the time, was forcibly deported in June this year,” he wrote on X.
Khatun and her family's deportation had stirred a huge political row in West Bengal, with the ruling TMC accusing the BJP of targeting Bengali migrant workers in the state the latter rules.
(With inputs from Tanmay Chatterjee)
