A pregnant Indian woman who was deported to Bangladesh despite holding Indian documents returned to West Bengal on Friday after a Indian Supreme Court directive.
Sonali Khatun, who is nine months pregnant, entered India in Malda with her eight year old son as district officials monitored the handover. She, her husband and their child were among six people pushed into Bangladesh on June 27 after Delhi police accused them of being Bangladeshi citizens who had entered illegally.
Her father told the Supreme Court she had been waiting on the Bangladesh side to return. Justice Joymalya Bagchi said her father’s undisputed citizenship meant she and her children were also citizens under the Citizenship Act. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee questioned why Indian citizens were labelled Bangladeshi.
had also mentioned Khatun during an anti-Special Intensive Revision (SIR) rally in Malda on Wednesday.
“How are Indian citizens being labelled Bangladeshi? Was Sonali Khatun Bangladeshi? She was Indian. Despite her having Indian documents, you pushed her to Bangladesh using the Border Security Force,”said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who comes from the Trinamool Congress, a party opposed to Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). BJP is a divisive Hindu nationalist political organization known for its hatred of Indian Muslims.