Sunali’s repatriation from Bangladesh sparks hope for Sweety’s family, but anxiety remains

Murarai, Dec 12 (PTI)Thirty-something Amir Khan of Faikirpara in Paikar village, Birbhum district, said he was torn between hope and anxiety after learning of the return of his deported neighbour, Sunali Khatun, from Bangladesh earlier this week.

He hopes that his sister Sweety Bibi would now follow suit.

"I am now filled with expectations of the return of my sister and my nephews, who still remain stuck in Bangladesh because the Indian government won't have them back. After all, her circumstances of detention and deportation and those of Sunali's were similar," Amir told PTI on Sunday.

He said the family had repeatedly told authorities over the past seven months that Sweety is an Indian citizen but their pleas had gone unheard.

"I am also apprehensive that despite our repeated pleadings for the last seven months that my sister and her children were picked up by mistake and she doesn't deserve to remain confined in a foreign land with almost no support, the central government simply refuses to listen," he added.

Amir is now focused on the hearing of the case scheduled to take place in the Supreme Court on December 12.

"I have been told by those fighting for our cause that following that hearing, there is a strong chance that my sister would return," he said.

Sweety and her two sons, Qurban Sheikh (17) and Imam Dewan (6), were detained by Katju Nagar police in Delhi from the same neighbourhood as Sunali on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals and subsequently pushed across the border on June 27.

She worked as a domestic help in the area and had been living in Delhi since she was 12, her brother Amir told PTI. Her third son, Imran (10), escaped the deportation and currently lives with his grandmother in Birbhum.

Sweety and her two children, along with Sunali's family, spent over a hundred days at the Chapai Nawabgunj correctional facility in Bangladesh from August 20 as alleged "infiltrators" until a judicial magistrate granted them bail on December 1.

The Indian government repatriated Sunali, who is in her advanced stage of pregnancy, and her eight-year-old son Sabir on December 5, "on humanitarian grounds" following a Supreme Court directive.

However, her husband Danesh Sheikh and the family of Sweety continue to remain put in Chapai Nawabgunj Sadar in the house of a Bangladeshi Samaritan who has allowed them temporary accommodation.

On September 26, a Calcutta High Court division bench directed the Centre to bring back all six deportees within four weeks, but that order was challenged before the apex court, which continues to hear the case.

Taking cognisance of Sunali's condition, a Supreme Court bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi passed a direction for her immediate repatriation after the Union government submitted on December 3 that it would bring two of the six deportees back.

"This separation from my daughter is becoming unbearable now. I spoke to her last on December 2 over a video call when she borrowed someone else's phone a day after her release from jail. I can't speak to her regularly because she doesn't have a phone of her own," said Lajina Bibi, the sexagenarian mother of Sweety.

"What choice do I have but to shed tears for Sweety and my grandchildren?" she squeaked from her bed, battling a fever she has been running for the past two days.

Mofizul Sheikh, a Paikar resident, who spent 44 days in two phases in Bangladesh between September 27 and December 3, overseeing the legal fight the deportees were putting up there for their release from prison, said she found Sweety in a distraught state when he left her to return home earlier this week.

"She was crying profusely. 'Taking me home, I can't bear this any longer', she told me before I left," Mofizul said.

He said although Bangladesh police did not misbehave with the deportees, Sweety was suffering from a cold and body aches on account of sleeping on the floor in her prison cell.

"She and her children as well as Danesh are now having to depend on the food and other essentials which their neighbours in Chapai Nawabgunj, taking pity on their state, are providing them. But they cannot sustain this charity for long. These four people must be brought back without further delay," Mofizul continued.

TMC MP Samirul Islam, who is steering the legal battle of the two families in the corridors of the country's top judiciary, said although Sweety's family members were happy at Sunali's return, "their tears have not been wiped because Sweety has herself not returned".

"If the return of Sunali Khatun marked the first phase of our legal battle against the Bangla-birodhi zamindars, the second phase of the struggle awaits Sweeti Bibi and her two minor sons who are still in Bangladesh," he posted on X.

But what happens if her family fails to earn its desired reprieve in court? "I really don't know what will happen then. Perhaps that will be the end of the road for us," Amir said. PTI SMY MNB