HC admits contempt plea against Centre over Bengal families pushed into Bangladesh

Kolkata: The Calcutta high court on Wednesday admitted separate contempt petitions against the Union home secretary filed by the fathers of the two Bengal homemakers who are lodged in a Bangladesh jail with their husbands and minor children despite the high court and a Bangladesh court directing the Indian government to bring them back, lawyers aware of the development said.

Both petitions will be heard on November 6 according to copies of the case status documents seen by HT.

The petitions will be heard by the division bench of justices Tapabrata Chakraborty and Ritabrata Kumar Mitra that directed the Centre on September 26 to bring back Sunali Khatun, who is in her eighth month of pregnancy, her husband Danish Sheikh, their minor son Sabir Sheikh and another couple, Sweety Bibi and Kurban Sheikh, and their minor son Imam Dewan to India in four weeks.

Residents of Bengal’s Birbhum district, the families went to Delhi in search of employment.

The deadline set by the division bench ended earlier this week.

On September 30, the Chapainawabganj district’s senior judicial magistrate’s court in Bangladesh ruled that the six persons, who were picked up from New Delhi and pushed into Bangladesh in June this year, were Indian citizens and should be sent back.

The two families were pushed into Bangladesh on orders from the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO). The six were subsequently arrested by Border Guard Bangladesh and jailed for illegally entering the country without travel documents under Bangladesh’s Control of Entry Act, 1952, according to a copy of the Bangladesh court order seen by HT.

“The Centre took no action on either of the court orders,” said Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Samirul Islam who is providing legal assistance to the families.

According to their petition in the Calcutta high court, the families were picked up from Rohini in northwest Delhi on June 24 on suspicion that they were illegal Bangladeshi immigrants because they speak Bengali and were pushed across the border on June 26 on the FRRO’s orders.