Mehbub Sheikh has been bedridden, barely able to talk and walk, since his return from the India-Bangladesh border in West Bengal.
“He was brutally beaten by the BSF to the extent that they thought he died and threw him across the fence on the Bangladesh side,” Mujibur Sheikh, his brother, told Maktoob.
On June 16, the West Bengal police dropped him off at his home in Hossain Nagar village in the state’s Murshidabad district. Two days ago, on June 14, the Border Security Force (BSF), which patrols India’s border with Bangladesh, spanning across 2,216 km with West Bengal, allegedly forcibly pushed him across the fence in North Bengal’s Uttar Dinajpur.
In total, seven people, including Mehbub, who are migrant workers mostly from Murshidabad district, were forcibly pushed across to Bangladesh territories on June 14 by the BSF, according to Samirul Islam, the Chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board.
The seven who had been working in Mumbai and Thane were previously arrested by the Maharashtra police between June 9 and June 10, on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshis, Islam said.
He added, “The seven people, all working in Maharashtra, were finally brought back between June 16 and June 17, after the top leadership, including the Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee, intervened and pressured the BSF to bring them back.”
Speaking to Maktoob, three of the returnees — Mehbub Sheikh, Nizamuddin Sheikh and Minarul Sheikh — said on June 13, they were taken to a military base in Maharashtra’s Pune and then flown to airbases on the periphery of Bangladesh in eastern and northeastern India, specifically in the cities of Siliguri and Agartala.
Each flight carried close to 160 Bengali-speaking migrants, before BSF forcibly pushed them across the international border with Bangladesh along North Bengal, they added.
Their arrest was part of a wider drive by several Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments, including the Maharashtra government, to identify “illegal Bangladeshis” and Rohingya refugees, following a recent order from the Union Home Ministry to deport illegal immigrants.
The order was in response to the April 22 attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, wherein unknown gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Hindus, which led to prevailing ant-Muslim sentiments in the country.
Trial by national anthem
Mehbub, the 36-year-old mason, was picked up by the police from the Kanakia Police Station on the Mira road when he was out sipping his evening tea with other Bengali migrants on June 9. Over the next three days, he was in the custody of Maharashtra police, he said.
“The Kanakia Police kept asking for my documents, and my family kept sending these documents,” Mehbub told Maktoob, struggling to talk from the pain. “But no document was enough.”
Minarul, one of the seven West Bengal residents brought back from the no-man’s land, said the police did not accept his central government-issued documents, including an Aadhar card and a voter ID.
“You can get an Aadhar card made for Rs 200,” Minarul said, quoting the police officers. “Your documents are fake.”
The Mumbai police arrested Minarul on the intervening night between June 9 and June 10 on the suspicion that he is an illegal Bangladeshi national based on a call he made to an individual in Bangladesh, Minarul said.
Minarul, who is a businessman dealing in human hair, told Maktoob that the call he made to Bangladesh was for his client. “I have my business listed in IndiaMart – an online marketplace — and I have my clients from everywhere, be it in India or Bangladesh,” he said. “How does a call to a client in Bangladesh make me a suspected Bangladeshi?”
Samirul Islam, who is also the Rajya Sabha member from the ruling All India Trinamool Congress Party (AITMC), told Maktoob: “While the seven were in the custody of the Maharashtra police, the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board contacted the Mumbai police and shared all their documents confirming their citizenship.
“But the Maharashtra police under the Bharatiya Janata Party government neither coordinated with the West Bengal government nor with the state police before dumping them across the border in Bangladesh,” he added.
Maktoob has seen their documents and can confirm their Indian citizenship.
The Maharashtra police, however, defended their action. A senior police officer at Mira Road police station told The Indian Express, “We don’t consider Aadhaar and PAN cards for this purpose, as they can be fraudulently obtained.”
For the next two days while in custody, Minarul was subjected to an intense verification process by the Maharashtra Police, “often asking me to reveal my address in Bangladesh,” he said.
At one point, Minarul added, the police asked him to recite the national anthem of India to prove his Indian nationality. “I tried to recite some lines, but I don’t have it memorised,” he said, “which is absolutely fine.”
Nizamuddin, another Murshidabad returnee sent to Bangladesh from Maharashtra, also faced a similar trial to prove his Indian citizenship.
“I am an illiterate person, and a migrant worker. I did not know that to claim my citizenship, I have to recite the national anthem,” he said, over the phone.
“Cross or we shoot you dead”
Minarul said that when they were boarded on an Air India flight on June 13 at 3 p.m. in Pune, their belongings, including documents, cards and mobile phones, were “thrown in a dustbin”. “The security officials also took our money,” he said.
For the rest of the flight to an airbase in Siliguri, his hands were tied along with others, except for children and the elderly. The aircraft’s last destination was Agartala with the rest of the migrants, we learnt.
According to the three interviewed, while a few of those handed over to the BSF by the Maharashtra police were Bangladeshi nationals, the majority were Indians. All of them, including the West Bengal residents, were Muslims, they said.
The security officials also ensured that no Hindus were onboard, Minarul said. “When the flight touched down at an airbase in Siliguri, a lady officer in army fatigue said if any Hindus were travelling with us,” Minarul said.
About 160 migrants, including Minarul and Nizamuddin, who travelled on the flight, were later divided into five groups. Each group, consisting of roughly 30 or more people, were carried on five separate buses heading to a BSF camp, they said.
After keeping them for four hours at the BSF base, Nizamuddin said, they were taken to the India-Bangladesh border at the dead end of the night. The BSF kept asking them to reveal their addresses all along the way, they said. “We were brutally beaten all along the way when we said our homes are in Murshidabad,” Nizamuddin said.
Minarul added, when they reached the international border, the BSF cocked their guns, and said: “Motherf****, cross [the border] or we shoot you dead”. “They made us cross the border by the force of guns, or we would not have.”
It was around the time that their video from June 15 went viral, recounting their ordeal from the no-man’s land.
On June 15, Minarul, Nizamuddin, and another West Bengal resident, Mostafa Kamal, were later handed over to the Mekhliganj police by the BSF after a flag meeting with Border Guard Bangladesh, Mani Bhusan Sarkar, Officer-In-Charge of the Mekhliganj police station, said.
Together the three spent over a day on the no-man’s land across the Ratanpur village on the international line in Cooch Behar.
Speaking to Maktoob, Sarkar said, “The BSF was unwilling to conduct the flag meeting with the BGB. It was after I spoke to my seniors that the flag meeting was held.”
We sent a questionnaire to BSF asking about the allegations made against them. The story will be updated if they respond.
‘Harassed for Bengali identity’
According to the three returnees, rights activists and politicians we spoke to, the suspicion over the nationality of the seven West Bengal residents stems from their Bengali identity.
“Is West Bengal not a part of India, or what?” asked Kirity Roy, secretary of the human rights organisation, Banglar Manabadhikar Surakha Mancha (MASUM). “They were hounded and sent to Bangladesh without any due process because they speak Bengali.”
Since May 7, when India launched Operation Sindoor, a military offensive against Pakistan to avenge the Pahalgam attack, over 2000 alleged Bangladeshi nationals were “pushed back” to Bangladesh, The Indian Express reported on 2 June.
Pushback is an ad-hoc and informal way of pushing back illegal immigrants from crossing into a country. “In the current context, this policy is for expelling citizens both arbitrarily and without any due process,” Sanjay Hegde, Supreme Court advocate, told Maktoob.
According to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, some 300-400 West Bengal residents are now languishing in a detention center in the BJP-ruled Rajasthan.
“Is it a crime to speak in Bengali? People of Bangladesh speak in Bengali, which is a different country,” Banerjee said. “Even Indians who have valid documents, but if they are found speaking in Bengali, they are being branded Bangladeshi.”
Meanwhile, Mehbub, Minarul and Nizamuddin have yet to recover from the trauma of their push back to Bangladeshi border.
“Even if we came back, it is extremely difficult to believe that my country could dump me on the border of another country,” Mehbub said.
“It’s the price we pay for being Bengali Muslims,” Minarul added.
