Indian Muslim woman pushed into Bangladesh despite Indian citizenship

NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A 40-year-old Muslim woman in India was pushed across the border into Bangladesh after police detained her as a suspected undocumented Bangladeshi migrant. 

Her family had produced multiple government records showing she was born in India and had lived there throughout her life, according to The Indian Express.

Sahida Fakir, originally from the eastern state of West Bengal, was detained after leaving her home to buy groceries in Navi Mumbai on July 18. 

Her family produced her birth certificate, school records, her parents’ land documents and other identity papers at a detention facility, but three days later they were told she had already been sent to Bangladesh. 

Fakir was subsequently taken more than 2,400 kilometers across India to the northeastern border region and pushed into Bangladesh through the Assam frontier, according to her family.

She said the crossing took place at about 1 a.m., after which she walked for eight hours through muddy fields before reaching a road.

She eventually reached Satkhira, a district in southwestern Bangladesh near the Indian border, where a local family provided her with food, clothing and shelter. Her husband and two sons remain in India, including her younger son, who is in seventh grade.

“I am an Indian citizen and just want to return home,” Fakir said by phone from Bangladesh. “My son is in Class 7; who will look after him?”

Her removal has now become the subject of a legal challenge. Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), a human rights organization in West Bengal, has approached the Calcutta High Court, accusing authorities of illegally arresting and arbitrarily detaining Fakir before branding her a Bangladeshi national.

The organization says Fakir possesses an Indian voter identification card, a tax identification number, a government-issued birth certificate and land registered in her name in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district.

Her family has lived in the border district for generations, while Fakir and her husband have spent about two decades living and working in Mumbai.

The rights group has also questioned the process preceding her removal, alleging that Fakir was held for nearly 90 hours without being brought before a judicial magistrate, informed of the legal grounds for her detention or given access to a lawyer and her family.

Another migrant workers’ rights organization has asked India’s Ministry of External Affairs to intervene. In an Aug. 8 letter, the West Bengal Migrant Labourer Unity Forum urged the federal government to verify Fakir’s documents and facilitate her return.

Fakir’s case comes amid mounting concerns over Bengali-speaking Muslims being detained as suspected Bangladeshis in different parts of India, with citizenship scrutiny placing migrant workers from West Bengal under particular pressure.

Fakir’s family is now seeking judicial and diplomatic intervention to bring her back across the same border, arguing that authorities expelled an Indian citizen before allowing her citizenship documents to be properly adjudicated.