Muslim teen wrongfully deported to Bangladesh returns home, father demands justice
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Weeks after being deported to Bangladesh by Rajasthan Police and the Border Security Force (BSF), 15-year-old Amir Sheikh from West Bengal’s Malda district has returned home.
His father, Jiyem Sheikh, says he will not rest until those responsible are punished.
“I am happy I got my son back, but I will only be at peace once those responsible are punished,” said Jiyem, questioning, “How can they do this to an Indian?”
Amir, a resident of Kaliachak, was reportedly detained in late June at his workplace in Sikar, Rajasthan.
According to the family, he was held without a warrant, denied legal access, and secretly sent across the border through the Phulbari post around June 28.
He then spent over a month in Bangladesh, in detention.
During a hearing on Wednesday on Jiyem Sheikh’s habeas corpus petition, the Calcutta High Court was informed that a BSF officer contacted the family on August 12, saying Amir had been caught trying to re-enter India without identification. He was handed over to the Basirhat Police in North 24 Parganas, who released him to his father after identity verification.
The court ordered both the Basirhat police and the central government to submit detailed reports by August 27.
Rajya Sabha MP and West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board chairman Samirul Islam condemned the incident, calling it a “cover-up” by the BJP.
“They claim Amir ‘inadvertently’ went to Bangladesh on his own! Just imagine! The same BJP leaders who scream that hordes of infiltrators are flooding India from Bangladesh now want us to believe that Amir willingly crossed the border into that very country through illegal routes!” he wrote on X.
Islam, who raised the matter in Parliament, said the case is part of a larger pattern of Bengali migrant workers facing harassment and even being forcibly sent to Bangladesh in BJP-ruled states. He said the family has video evidence from Amir in Bangladesh and vowed to legally prove he was deported.
The petition filed by Jiyem Sheikh alleges Amir was detained on June 25 during a “warrantless, clandestine operation” and kept incommunicado before being deported. The family only learned of his location after a Facebook video surfaced showing him in police custody in Khulna, Bangladesh.
Similar incidents have been reported in recent years, with dozens of Bengali-speaking workers allegedly pushed across the border, only to be brought back once authorities realised their error.