The Trinamool Congress has alleged that a 19-year-old man from West Bengal’s Malda district was wrongly deported to Bangladesh by the Rajasthan Police, despite being an Indian citizen.
The young man, Sk Amir, had been working in Rajasthan when he was picked up by police and later sent across the border on July 22. His family insists that he is not a foreign national. “He is neither a Rohingya nor a Bangladeshi,” said Samirul Islam, a Trinamool MP and chairperson of the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board. “Despite being a Bengali-speaking Indian citizen, he was forcibly sent across the border.”
Amir’s father, Jiyem Sheikh, has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Calcutta High Court, asking the court to look into the case and ensure that his son is brought back. According to the petition, Amir had spent nearly two months in a detention camp in Rajasthan, even though he showed his Aadhaar card and birth certificate as proof of his Indian identity.
The case came into the spotlight after a video went viral online, showing a young man, believed to be Amir, crying. After the video spread, Sheikh received a phone call from the person who recorded it, who told him that Amir was currently in Ghumra, a village in Bangladesh.
The case is expected to be heard in court on Friday.
This incident is not isolated. In recent months, several Bengali-speaking Muslims working in various BJP-ruled states have been picked up by the police and asked to prove their citizenship. Many of them have reportedly been deported to Bangladesh without proper legal procedures. In some cases, after protests and verification by Indian authorities, a few individuals have been allowed to return.
In July, Human Rights Watch urged the Indian government to stop such deportations and respect legal procedures. The group said that deporting people without following due process violates basic rights and protections against arbitrary detention.
The Trinamool Congress has raised alarm over this trend, calling it harassment of poor migrant workers based on language and religion.
