Sunali Khatun, 26, and her husband are struggling to provide for their three children. After being deported to Bangladesh and later brought back to India following a prolonged legal battle, the family is now afraid to return to Delhi for work.
According to The Indian Express, Sunali had been doing odd jobs in Delhi for more than a decade when she and her husband, Danish, were detained along with others as alleged “illegal” immigrants in mid-2025. Sunali was heavily pregnant at the time. The couple were sent to Bangladesh on June 26, 2025.
Following the Supreme Court’s intervention, Sunali and her son returned to West Bengal on December 5, 2025. Danish, however, remained stranded across the border for another seven months.
“We had a life in the Capital, but now, we are penniless,” Sunali says from her parents’ home in Paikar, a village in West Bengal’s Birbhum district, about 262km from Kolkata.
Recalling her time in Bangladesh, she says she was forced to spend time in jail while pregnant and struggled with inadequate food.
“In my pregnant condition, I had to spend time in jail. The food was not good… I prayed every day that I don’t have my delivery — someone told me that would make the child a Bangladeshi citizen,” she says.
Sunali lives in a 42-square-foot room made of mud and plastic sheets, holding her nine-month-old son as her two older children play nearby. Her eight-year-old daughter is running a fever.
Sunali gave birth to her son at Rampurhat Medical College and Hospital on January 5, 2026. Trinamool Congress MP Abhishek Banerjee visited her and named the boy Apon, meaning “ours”.
Since then, however, the stream of political visitors has dried up, Sunali says.
“It’s tougher than when I was in Bangladesh. Now, it’s a question of day-to-day existence… Now, no one comes.”
Sunali says she earned around Rs 5,000 a month working as a domestic help in Delhi, while Danish made roughly Rs 500 a day as a ragpicker. Together, they earned about Rs 20,000 a month. After paying Rs 2,000 in rent, they could even save a little.
Sunali is no longer working, while Danish survives on occasional jobs, including work as a helper at construction sites in the village. He earns no more than Rs 300 a day.
“Do you think we can survive on Rs 300?… That’s too little for even two full meals for the family,” Sunali says.
Her two older children attend a local government primary school.
The family is also struggling to restore its documents, a priority since their deportation to Bangladesh.
Although Sunali and Danish have Aadhaar cards bearing residential addresses in West Bengal, neither was included in the electoral roll following the Special Intensive Revision. Sunali’s parents, however, remain on the roll and voted in the Assembly elections.
“I lost my birth certificate in Delhi, and neither of us ever had a voter card. We would come here to Birbhum once every few years. Now I am trying to get the documents again, including a voter card,” she says.
Police also seized their ration cards, according to Sunali.
Obtaining a birth certificate for Apon has proved difficult because Danish’s Aadhaar card does not carry his full name.
“We have applied to correct this. Then, we will get Apon’s birth certificate,” Sunali says.
Birbhum District Magistrate Dhaval Jain told The Indian Express over the phone that officials’ contact numbers had been shared with the family after their return.
“They should apply for ration cards, etc. We will help as per procedure,” he says.
Mofizul Islam, a social worker assisting the family, says Sunali and Danish have obtained bank accounts and PAN cards, and their Aadhaar cards have been linked to their phone numbers.
“But the real struggle has started. They are a poor family, and her husband is desperately looking for a job,” he says.
Sunali and her children are now living with her parents. Her father, Bhodu Sheikh, says the family applied for a house under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana but has yet to receive a response.
Sunali says she was promised a permanent house after returning to India.
“But nothing has happened,” she says.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam says the party continues to assist the family in whatever way it can.
Basudeb Chakraborty, the family’s advocate, says Sunali and her family no longer face uncertainty over the legal proceedings concerning their deportation.
“The Centre’s plea challenging the order directing the family’s return from Bangladesh has become infructuous… Nothing is pending in any court regarding their deportation,” he says.
However, Asif Faruk, West Bengal state general secretary of Parijayi Sramik Aikya Manch, says the matter should not end with the family’s return.
“Who will take responsibility for vulnerable families like Sunali’s, caught between the impacts of the Centre’s policies and the state’s inaction?” he asks.