Navi Mumbai: A 40-year-old Muslim woman from West Bengal was allegedly deported to Bangladesh after police detained her on suspicion of being an “infiltrator”, even though her family presented multiple government documents establishing her Indian citizenship. Her husband and two sons remain in India.
Sahida Fakir, originally from Swarupnagar in North 24 Parganas district, was picked up from a market in Sanpada, Navi Mumbai, on July 18 while buying groceries. Her husband, Jumman Fakir, said the family produced her birth certificate, school certificate, her parents’ land deed and other identity documents at a detention centre in Chembur. Three days later, they were told she had been sent to Bangladesh.
According to the family, Sahida was taken to Assam and pushed across the border into Bangladesh around 1 am along with a group of people. She walked for eight hours through muddy fields before reaching the main road and is now staying with a family in Satkhira, Bangladesh.
“I am an Indian citizen and want to return home. My son is in Class 7; who will look after him?” Sahida said over the phone from Satkhira.
Her younger son attends Class 7 and her elder son works as a mobile phone repair technician. “Both our families are from Swarupnagar. We are Indian citizens and have lived in Mumbai for two decades without facing anything like this before,” Jumman told Indian Express.
A legal petition filed by Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), a human rights organisation, before the Calcutta High Court states that Sahida holds an Electoral Photo Identity Card, a PAN card issued by the Income Tax Department, a registered birth certificate, and land recorded in her name in Swarupnagar Block. Her parents appeared in the 2002 electoral roll of the Swarupnagar Assembly constituency. Her birth was officially registered on 12 October 1995 by the Bithari Hakimpur Gram Panchayat under Registration No. 6382.
MASum alleged Sahida was held for nearly 90 hours without being produced before a magistrate and was denied access to legal counsel or communication with her family.
“Executive authorities have no jurisdiction to declare an individual as a foreign national merely on suspicion or profiling,” said Kirity Roy, secretary of MASUM.
The West Bengal Migrant Labourer Unity Forum wrote to the Ministry of External Affairs on August 8, urging it to verify Sahida’s documents and facilitate her return. Residents of Gobindapur, her ancestral village, also wrote to the district magistrate on August 5, confirming her family’s generations-long presence in the village.
The case mirrors earlier instances. In 2025, West Bengal residents Sunali Khatun and Sweety Bibi were detained in Delhi and pushed into Bangladesh before being repatriated following legal intervention in the Calcutta High Court and Supreme Court. In June 2025, five migrant workers from West Bengal detained in Mumbai were similarly deported and later repatriated after a flag meeting between the BSF and Border Guard Bangladesh.
Sahida’s family is now preparing to approach the Calcutta High Court seeking her return.
