India to bring back pregnant Muslim woman after forced deportation

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A pregnant Bengali-speaking Muslim woman and her eight-year-old son — forcibly pushed into Bangladesh by Indian authorities earlier this year — will now be brought back to India after the Supreme Court intervened and demanded humanitarian action.

The case exposed the growing targeting and profiling of Bengali-origin Muslims who are frequently labelled “Bangladeshi” despite holding Indian documents.

On Wednesday, the government told the court it would repatriate Sonali Khatun, now in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and provide her immediate medical care. 

Recording the Centre’s undertaking, the bench said the case demanded “humanity over technicalities” and ordered that she be allowed to live near her relatives in Birbhum district of West Bengal.

The court noted that Sonali’s father is an Indian citizen and asked why no basic verification was done before she was deported. “If her father is an Indian citizen, she also becomes an Indian citizen, and her son is also one. There has to be some inquiry following the principles of natural justice,” the judges told Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, underscoring how due process was abandoned.

According to case records, the ordeal began on June 23, 2025, when Sonali and five others from Birbhum, including three minors, were detained in Delhi as so-called “suspected infiltrators”. 

Within three days, all six were pushed across the border into Bangladesh without any proper hearings or verification of their status. Despite a Calcutta High Court order on September 24 directing the Modi government to bring them back within four weeks, the government failed to comply.

 Only after the Supreme Court intervened again on November 25, and a Bangladeshi court granted them bail on December 1,  New Delhi finally agreed to repatriate her and her son.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has used the case to attack what she calls a deliberate campaign against Bengali-speaking Muslims. 

Addressing a rally in Malda on December 3, she asked, “How are Indian citizens being labelled Bangladeshi? Was Sonali Khatun Bangladeshi? She was Indian. Despite her having Indian documents, you pushed her to Bangladesh by the Border Security Force,” directly accusing the BJP-led central government and border forces of weaponizing the “Bangladeshi” tag.

Banerjee linked Sonali’s fate to a wider pattern in which migrant workers from West Bengal are detained across India — in Odisha, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra — on suspicion of being from Bangladesh, and then quietly pushed over the border. She described this as an assault on Bengali identity itself, not just a bureaucratic mistake.

Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam, who chairs the state’s Migrant Workers Welfare Board, said the Centre had agreed to bring her back “on humanitarian grounds” only after months of delay and court pressure. 

He called her deportation “illegal” and argued that she was targeted “merely for speaking Bengali,” saying her ordeal is a stark example of why many in the state now describe the BJP as “Bangla-birodhi (anti-Bengali) landlords.” 

His remarks reflect a broader fear that Bengali-speaking Muslims can be erased from citizenship by a combination of prejudice and paperwork.

For Sonali, who should have been preparing for childbirth near her family in Birbhum instead of fighting for basic recognition of her nationality from across a border, the legal victory is only partial relief. 

Rights advocates warn that without sustained scrutiny and structural safeguards, her case may be a preview of what awaits other Bengali-speaking Muslims in eastern India — one controversial decision away from being told they do not belong in the country they call home.