Bangladesh court declares two families forced into country as Indian citizens: Report
A court in Bangladesh has declared two families from West Bengal’s Birbhum district, who had been forced into the neighbouring country earlier this year from India, as Indian citizens, The Indian Express reported on Friday.
An order issued by the senior judicial magistrate of the Sadar Court in Chapainawabganj on October 3 directed that the matter be forwarded to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka for appropriate action.
The magistrate took into account the families’ Aadhaar cards and residential addresses in West Bengal, the newspaper reported. The court also noted that the group included a pregnant woman, Sonali Khatun, and children.
“We are hoping that they will come back in the next one or two days,” Supratick Syamal, Khatun’s lawyer in India, told Scroll on Friday.
Since May, thousands of Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been rounded up in states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and asked to prove that they were Indian citizens – and not undocumented immigrants.
In several cases, workers have been declared foreigners within days and forced into Bangladesh, despite being Indian citizens.
Khatun’s relatives had said that she, her husband Danish Sheikh and their eight-year-old child were among six persons detained from Delhi in June...
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