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Kolkata: Six West Bengal natives, including three minors and two women, were picked up in June 2025 as suspected illegal migrants in Delhi, taken to Assam, and forcibly deported to Bangladesh. Four of them returned in July 2026, after spending a year in Bangladesh as actual immigrants.

“Isn’t it absurd that someone can just be picked up and thrown out of the country purely on a whim?” Sweety Bibi told Article 14. “I still can’t believe this really happened.”

Sweety Bibi, 33, and her sons, aged 17 and seven, along with Danish Sekh, returned from Bangladesh on July 8 this year. Danish’s wife and her eight-year-old son, who were deported with them, were allowed to return six months earlier, in December last year.

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Expelled without being given a chance to prove citizenship

Danish and Sunali lived in a shanty with their son Sabir in Bangali Basti in Delhi’s Rohini. On June 18, 2025, police came searching for undocumented Bangladeshi migrants in the slum and picked up Danish along with several others.

Sweety Bibi and her two sons, Kurban and Imam, were picked up from a neighbouring shanty. Sunali and her son were detained when she went to the police station to ask about her husband.

They were soon produced before the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in RK Puram. The office, on June 26, 2025, issued deportation orders for all six. They were allegedly taken to Assam and pushed into Bangladesh, while their families remained unaware of their deportation.

Left in a dark forest with the order: Run or get shot

None of them recall when exactly they were left at the edge of a forest after being taken out of a police vehicle. Even though Sunali grew up in forested areas in Birbhum, Bengal, she said the darkness was unlike anything she had seen before. Danish, Sunali, their son Sabir, along with Sweety, her two sons, Kurban and Imran, did not know where they were left, and yet the Border Security Force ordered them to run into the woods.

When they refused, the BSF personnel said, “Run, or get shot,” Danish said.

They ran even though they had nothing with them. No food, money, or identification documents; the authorities had taken everything before deporting them.

Sunali told Article 14 that they spent their first night at the forest’s edge, afraid to go deeper into the darkness. After sunrise, they ventured out looking for a village. Days went by, and finally the group realised, “We were circling the same areas,” Danish said.

Bangladesh authorities notified

It was only after they reached a village six or seven days later that they realised they were in Bangladesh, having been pushed from Assam across the border. They were given food and water while a panchayat member notified the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB).

The BGB asked the six to attempt to cross back into India via a different forested stretch. The authorities told them to continue running and never stop, even if India’s border security personnel ordered them to.

On the muddy terrain in the forested area, they ran. Even after falling again and again, they got back up and ran. At some point in their journey, the BSF heard them moving and shouted, “Halt.”

They still kept running. However, armed BSF officers appeared before them moments later with guns pointed at them. Danish said the personnel beat them “black and blue” and forced them back into Bangladesh.

After being advised to look for work in Dhaka, the group survived in the capital for a week, working odd jobs. Later, they moved to Chapainawabganj, bordering West Bengal, in hopes of finding a way back into India.

In Alinagar village, Chapainawabganj police traced them and arrested all six as illegal Indian immigrants.

Families approach court

On September 26, 2026, the Calcutta High Court ordered the Union government to bring the six Indians back and termed their detention and deportations illegal.

The Centre had challenged the order in the Supreme Court but agreed to bring back Sunali and her minor son on “humanitarian grounds” after the court was informed of her advanced stage of pregnancy.

The government later said on May 22, 2026, it would bring Danish, Sweety, and her two sons back for verification of their citizenship in view of “peculiar facts and circumstances of the case”. The Centre asserted that the move should not be treated as a precedent.

TMC MP intervenes

The families also sought help in Bangladesh, while TMC MP Samirul Islam stepped up to coordinate their bail in Bangladesh.

Faruk Ali, a West Bengal native who had settled in Bangladesh in 1993 after its formation, agreed to stand surety for their bail as a Bangladeshi citizen. They were released on December 1, 2025.

After Sunali and Sabir returned that month to India, the remaining four moved into Ali’s home and waited.

“The neighbours were truly helpful,” Sweety said, recalling her time at Ali’s house. “They checked on us if we needed anything. They gave us rice and vegetables on several occasions.”

They remain grateful, she said, adding that they could not have fought the battle alone.

Proving citizenship remains challenge

Although Sunali, Danish and Sweety returned after court orders, their citizenship remains under scrutiny.

Supreme Court Justice Joymalya Bagchi in December last year said Sunali only needs to establish that her father is Bhodu Sekh to prove her citizenship.

The names of Bhodu Sekh and Jyotsna Bibi, Sunali’s parents, have appeared in the 2002 electoral rolls in Bengal’s Murarai assembly constituency. Their names were retained in the 2025-26 electoral rolls after the Special Intensive Revision in West Bengal. Sunali’s Aadhaar shows that Bhodu Sekh is her father. However, she does not possess a birth certificate.

And her name in the Delhi voter roll can no longer be located, with the family claiming it was deleted. Similarly, Sweety’s name was also removed from the electoral rolls after SIR in the capital.

Danish, too, has no birth certificate, although his family has land records from the 1970s and he possesses an Aadhaar card and school-leaving certificate.

It remains doubtful whether these documents will suffice to prove their citizenship, especially as a rising number of Bengali-speaking Muslims face citizenship denial despite presenting valid identification.