Murarai, Dec 7: 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 said 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 said. 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. (PTI)
