Father of another Bengali migrant worker deported to B'desh moves HC

Amid a charged political environment and back-to-back allegations of persecution of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in BJP-ruled states, the father of a resident of Malda district in West Bengal moved Calcutta High Court on Thursday challenging the Centre’s decision to deport his son to Bangladesh after branding him an “illegal immigrant”.

Jiyem Sheikh, father of 19-year old Amir Sheikh, alleged that his son was first unlawfully detained by the state police in Rajasthan, where he had travelled a few months ago in search of work, and later pushed to Bangladesh.

Sheikh moved a habeas corpus petition before the high court seeking judicial intervention to bring his son back. Habeas corpus is a legal writ requiring a person held in custody to be brought before a court to decide the legality of their detention.

The family of the deported migrant from Jalalpur village under Kaliachawk police station in Malda claimed that Amir was held in a detention camp by Rajasthan Police for nearly two months despite showing the authorities his Aadhaar card and birth certificate as proof of Indian citizenship.

The family, claiming to have lived in Malda for generations, alleged that they were shocked to learn that he had been sent across the border to Bangladesh from a social media clip in late July.

“Amir Sk… was unlawfully detained by the Rajasthan Police, governed by the BJP, and deported to Bangladesh. He is neither a Rohingya nor a Bangladeshi national. Despite being a Bengali-speaking Indian citizen, he was forcibly sent across the border. His family holds land records dating back to the pre-Independence era,” wrote Samirul Islam, chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board and TMC Rajya Sabha MP, on his X handle.

The legal move from Amir’s aggrieved family came in the wake of similar petitions filed in the high court by two families in the Paikar area of Muraroi in Birbhum district.

At least six migrant members belonging to two families, which included two women — Sonali Bibi and Sweety Bibi — and three minors aged between 5 and 16 were allegedly deported to the neighbouring country after they were detained by Delhi Police from the Bengali Basti in Sector 26, Rohini, in June.

Allegations of forcible deportations on suspicion of illegal immigration by the Bengali-speaking migrant workforce have also been reported from states like Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh in the recent past.

In June, seven residents of West Bengal were detained in Mumbai and later pushed into Bangladesh by the BSF. Following intervention by the West Bengal government, four youths from Murshidabad, one from Purba Bardhaman, and a husband-wife couple from North 24 Parganas were brought back to India.

On Wednesday, 6 August, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee launched a blistering attack on the BJP, accusing the party of conspiring to harass Bengali-speaking migrants by purging voter lists, and warned that if genuine voters were disenfranchised, she would expose the Centre’s alleged persecution of Bengal and Bengalis on international platforms.

Addressing a massive rally packed with migrant families, students, and leaders from the tribal heartland of Jhargram, the Trinamool Congress chief alleged that the BJP, through its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls beginning with Bihar, was laying the groundwork for a "backdoor NRC" to systematically disenfranchise minorities, tribals, and opposition supporters.

She also slammed the BJP's demand for citizenship documents. "Do BJP leaders themselves have their parents' birth certificates? Mr Amit Shah, arrest me if I am wrong. Do you have your parents' birth certificates?" Banerjee asked.

“Earlier, the institutional delivery rate was 60 per cent. Even I was born at home. Previously, children were born at home. Where will the certificate come from? Now everything is based on 2002. Those who are demanding this, do they have their birth certificates?"

Banerjee threatened to take up the issue of persecution of Bengalis at global forums if it didn’t stop immediately.

"If they remove the names of genuine Bengalis from the electoral rolls, I will travel the world and expose their (BJP's) true faces," Banerjee warned.

"I never speak about our country to the outside world. But if this continues, I will not remain silent. If Bengal faces atrocities, I will tell the whole world how this government is torturing us," she said, after taking part in a 3-km-protest march.

This was her second warning following the 28 July protest in Kolkata, where she had launched a bhasha andolan (language movement), a fiery escalation of her anti-BJP offensive ahead of the 2026 Assembly elections.

With PTI inputs