‘From Delhi to Bangladesh jail, finally a ray of hope,’ – Sweety Bibi and her two children are set to return, a year after push back

Breaking down while speaking to The Indian Express over the phone from Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh, over 220 km from Birbhum, Sweety said: “I had lost hope for myself and my children… Finally the highest court of the country has delivered justice. Now all I want to do is to get back home safely.”

Appearing for the Centre before the Supreme Court Friday, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told a three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant: “My instructions are, the Government will bring them back, and thereafter will examine their status, and depending on the outcome, will take steps accordingly.” Mehta also urged the Bench to record that this step was being taken as regards this particular case and should not be treated as a precedent.

The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by the Centre challenging a Calcutta High Court order of September 27 last year asking it to bring back some persons deported to Bangladesh as the due process appeared to have not been followed in their case. The High Court passed the order on a habeas corpus petition by Bhodu Sheikh, whose daughter Sunali Khatoon and her family were deported along with Sweety Bibi and her family, after being picked up from Delhi, where they were working as daily wagers.

Sunali, who was pregnant then and has since delivered a boy, was brought back earlier in December to Paikar village, also in Birbhum, along with a minor son, 8, on humanitarian grounds. Her husband Danish continues to be in Bangladesh, and is expected to come back now along with Sweety Bibi.

At Friday’s hearing, Justice Kant sought to know how long it would take for those deported to be brought back. The SG said it usually took 8-10 days and urged the Court to post the matter for further hearing after the summer recess starting June.

“I am physically and mentally sick,” said Sweety. “I am at the mercy of the kindness of a family here. They have been taking care of us. But how many days could this continue? I have not met my daughter who is in Birbhum for nearly a year.”

Danish spoke of the days spent lonely since Sunali and his son left. “I will finally meet my wife and my newborn.”

Faruk Hussain, whose family took in the deportees after they were released on bail by the Bangladeshi authorities, told The Indian Express: “We did what we could to help them. The court gave us their responsibility. Since then they have stayed at our house. Every day Sweety and her children would cry, they were broken. Danish too had lost hope… Today is a happy day for all of us.”

Recalling how they reached Hussain’s house, Sweety said: “We were pushed out through the Assam border. For some time, we hid in the bushes along the border and tried to return, but failed. Then we spent days on the streets of Dhaka, before finally going to a relative’s house in Chapainawabganj. We were arrested from there.”

Police in Chapainawabganj booked them under the Passport Act and Foreigners’ Act in August last year. On October 3, the senior judicial magistrate of the District Court in Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh, declared both Sweety and Sunali’s families as Indian citizens based on their Aadhaar cards and residential addresses in West Bengal, ordering their “pushback” to India.

The families were released on bail on December 1.

Meanwhile, in the SIR exercise ongoing in Bengal, Sunali’s father made it to the voter list, while Sweety’s mother’s case is being heard by the tribunals.

Sweety’s brother Amir Khan, speaking on the phone from their home in Birbhum, said: “We are grateful to everyone who helped. Her 10-year-old waits for her. Our family will be reunited.”

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam, former chairman of the state’s migrants’ welfare board who helped Sweety’s and Sunali’s families, shared the news that they may all be back on his X account. “I hail the Indian judiciary, and we have full faith in our Judicial System,” Islam posted, while calling the government’s changed stand in the Court “a significant reaffirmation of constitutional accountability and the rule of law”.

Describing their deportation as “illegal pushback of Bengali-speaking persons”, the MP said: “Now, it is the turn of Sunali’s husband, as well as Sweety Bibi and her two minor sons, to return to their homeland.”

Mofizul Islam, a Birbhum-based social worker who has been helping Sweety and Sunali’s families said: “They were thrown out in the dark, but now they will be brought back in broad daylight.”