‘Without verification’: Indian SC seeks govt’s response to son’s plea over Muslim woman forced into Bangladesh

The Indian Supreme Court on Thursday sought the Union government’s response to a petition filed by the son of a West Bengal woman who was allegedly forced into Bangladesh without verification of her citizenship.

Sahida Fakir, a resident of Gobindapur in West Bengal who had worked in Mumbai for about 20 years, was detained on July 19 on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, her son’s lawyer told Scroll.

According to the petition, Fakir was kept in custody for more than 100 hours before being produced before a judicial magistrate. It alleged that she was neither informed of the grounds for her detention nor allowed to communicate with her family.

Five days later, she was handed over to the Border Security Force (BSF), which allegedly forced her across the international border into Bangladesh, the petition said.

Fakir was able to contact her family on July 31 after being provided temporary shelter in Bangladesh on humanitarian grounds.

The petition argued that her alleged forced deportation violated Articles 14, 21 and 22 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantee equality before the law, protection of life and personal liberty, and safeguards against arbitrary arrest and detention.

It also submitted several documents as evidence of Fakir’s Indian citizenship, including a voter identity card issued in 2008.

Fakir’s parents were also listed in the 2002 electoral roll, a copy of which Scroll has seen. However, during the recent special intensive revision of electoral rolls, Fakir was marked as “under adjudication”. An appeal challenging her exclusion is pending before the tribunal hearing similar cases.

In May 2025, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of people suspected of being undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Following the April 2025 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, police in several states, most of them governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have detained Bengali-speaking people, mostly Muslims, and asked them to prove their Indian citizenship.

Several people have subsequently been forced into Bangladesh after allegedly failing to establish their citizenship. In some cases, people who were mistakenly sent to Bangladesh later returned to India after state authorities established that they were Indian citizens.