Father Moves Calcutta High Court After Son Wrongfully Deported To Bangladesh
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A Malda resident has filed a habeas corpus plea after his 19-year-old son, an Indian citizen, was allegedly detained in Rajasthan and deported to Bangladesh despite valid ID proofs. The case adds to growing claims of wrongful deportations of Bengali-speaking migrants.
Kolkata: On August 7, in a serious development raising concerns about the treatment of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in several BJP-ruled states, the father of a 19-year-old boy from West Bengal’s Malda district has approached the Calcutta High Court.
He has challenged the Central government’s decision to deport his son to Bangladesh after branding him an “illegal immigrant,” despite holding Indian identification documents.
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Jiyem Sheikh, father of Amir Sheikh, filed a habeas corpus petition seeking help from the court to bring his son back to India.
Amir had travelled to Rajasthan a few months ago to find work. His father claimed that instead of being allowed to work, Amir was unlawfully picked up by the police, detained in a camp, and later forcefully deported to Bangladesh.
A habeas corpus is a legal action that allows someone to report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian to bring the prisoner to court, to determine if the detention is lawful.
According to Amir’s family from Jalalpur village under the Kaliachawk police station limits in Malda district, Amir was kept in detention by the Rajasthan Police for almost two months.
During this time, they say he showed police officers both his Aadhaar card and his birth certificate – documents that prove he is an Indian citizen. Despite this, he was not released.
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Shockingly, the family came to know about Amir’s deportation not from the authorities, but through a video circulating on social media in late July. The clip showed that Amir had already been sent across the border to Bangladesh.
“Amir Sk… was unlawfully detained by the Rajasthan Police, governed by the BJP, and deported to Bangladesh. He is neither a Rohingya nor a Bangladeshi national. Despite being a Bengali-speaking Indian citizen, he was forcibly sent across the border. His family holds land records dating back to the pre-Independence era,”
said Samirul Islam, Chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board and a Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP, on his official X (formerly Twitter) account.
Amir’s case is not the only one. His family’s legal petition comes soon after two other families from the Paikar area in Murarai, Birbhum district also approached the Calcutta High Court with similar complaints.
At least six people, including two women – Sonali Bibi and Sweety Bibi – and three minor children aged between 5 and 16, were allegedly deported to Bangladesh. These individuals were reportedly detained by the Delhi Police from the Bengali Basti area in Sector 26, Rohini, in June.
There have been increasing reports in recent months that Bengali-speaking migrant workers are being wrongfully detained and forcibly deported from BJP-ruled states like Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh.
These individuals are often labelled as illegal immigrants without proper investigation, even if they have valid Indian documents.
In another similar incident in June, seven residents of West Bengal were detained in Mumbai and then deported to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force (BSF).
The matter drew public and political attention, and the West Bengal government intervened. As a result of this intervention, four youths from Murshidabad, one from Purba Bardhaman, and a married couple from North 24 Parganas were eventually brought back to India.
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