‘Acted in hot haste’: Calcutta HC orders return of Bengali migrants deported to Bangladesh
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Kolkata: The Calcutta High Court has quashed the Union government’s deportation orders against two migrant worker families from West Bengal, directing that six individuals pushed into Bangladesh earlier this year be brought back to India within four weeks.
A division bench of Justices Reetobroto Mitra and Tapabrata Chakraborty, while hearing two habeas corpus petitions, held that the authorities had “acted in hot haste” and “admittedly did not follow” the Union home ministry’s May 2 guidelines on identifying and deporting undocumented foreigners.
The deported group includes 26-year-old Sunali Khatun from Birbhum district, who was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. The court noted glaring inconsistencies in the official proceedings, observing that her interrogation report claimed she had crossed into India in 1998 even though her Aadhaar and PAN records proved she had not yet been born at that time.
Petitioners Bhodu Sekh and Amir Khan alleged that their relatives, who had moved to Delhi for employment, were detained in June, coerced into signing documents, and subsequently deported to Bangladesh through Guwahati.
The bench concluded that the deportations “raise a suspicion that the concerned authorities, while acting in hot haste, have clearly violated the provisions” of the May 2 instructions. It directed the Union government to coordinate with the Indian High Commission in Dhaka and ensure the six deportees’ repatriation. A government plea to stay the order was rejected.
The ruling has triggered a political row. Trinamool Congress (TMC) general secretary Abhishek Banerjee accused the BJP of targeting Bengali speakers, saying, “They are arresting and detaining people just for speaking Bengali… along with the slap that the high court delivered today, they must also apologise.”
BJP spokesperson Debjit Sarkar described the deportations as “an awful mistake” and called Khatun’s case “collateral damage,” but maintained that “lakhs of Bangladeshi infiltrators cannot be allowed to stay in our country using this instance as a shield."
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Five railway staffers injured as van headed to Rajdhani Express fire site overturns in MP
Ratlam (MP) (PTI): Five railway staffers were injured, one of them critically, when their van carrying repair equipment to the site of a Rajdhani Express fire overturned in Madhya Pradesh's Ratlam district on Sunday, officials said.
The blaze erupted in an AC coach of the Delhi-bound Thiruvananthapuram-Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express between Vikramgarh Alot and Lunirichha stations under the Kota division of the railways in Ratlam at 5.15 am.
It disrupted the movement of several trains on the Mumbai-Delhi route, as per the officials.
A van carrying necessary equipment to Alot overturned on the way when a cow suddenly strayed into the middle of the road, they said.
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Five railwaymen were injured, one of them critically, the officials said.
The incident took place when the van carrying essential equipment for overhead electric line repair, among other things, was on its way to Alot from Shyamnagar in Ratlam, West Central Railway's chief public relations officer Harshit Shrivastava told PTI.
The injured persons were rushed to the hospital and were subsequently referred to Kota in Rajasthan, officials said.
No casualties were reported in the train fire.
