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Scroll.in
a day ago
- Politics
- Scroll.in
SC refuses to entertain petition against Assam ‘pushing' back declared foreigners to Bangladesh
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a petition challenging the Assam government 'pushing' back to Bangladesh persons who have been declared foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunals in the state, Live Law reported. A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and SC Sharma was hearing a petition filed by the All BTC Minority Students Union, which claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state was arbitrarily pushing Indian citizens to Bangladesh without following due process under the guise of deporting undocumented migrants. 'Why are you not going to the Gauhati High Court?' PTI quoted the bench as asking advocate Sanjay Hegde, who appeared for the All BTC Minority Students Union. In response, Hegde said that the petition was based on an order passed by the top court earlier. The advocate also said that the union would withdraw the petition and take recourse before the High Court. The Supreme Court then allowed him to withdraw the petition. The petition came against the backdrop of a surge in detentions of declared foreigners in Assam since May 23. Families say they have no information on their relatives' whereabouts. Some of them have identified their missing relatives in videos from Bangladesh, alleging they were forcibly sent across the border. Scroll had earlier reported that a former teacher from Morigaon district, Khairul Islam, whose citizenship case was still being heard in the Supreme Court, had been picked up from the Matia detention centre and forced out along the Bangladesh border near Assam's South Salmara district in the early hours of May 27. In a video recorded by journalist Mostafuzur Tara from Bangladesh's Rangpur division, Khairul Islam alleged that he was among 14 persons 'pushed' into Bangladesh by India's Border Security Force on the morning of May 27. Islam and the others were reported to be in no man's land, between the two countries. Three days later, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma admitted to 'pushing' back persons who were declared foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunals to Bangladesh. Stating that the process to push back foreigners would continue, Sarma claimed that the action was being taken as per the directives issued by the Supreme Court in February. On February 4, the Supreme Court directed the state government to start the process of deporting foreign nationals being held in the state's detention centres immediately. It had said that foreign nationals can be deported even without an address. 'You cannot continue to detain them they are held to be foreigners, they should be deported immediately.' Foreigners Tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship. Only those living in the state before March 25, 1971, or their descendants, qualify as Indian citizens in Assam, as per the Assam Accord. However, these tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and of declaring people foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory. In its petition, the All BTC Minority Students Union said that after the February 4 order, the Assam government had 'reportedly launched a sweeping and indiscriminate drive to detain and deport individuals suspected to be foreigners, even in the absence of Foreigners Tribunal declarations, nationality verification, or exhaustion of legal remedies', PTI reported. Referring to several news reports about persons being 'pushed' into Bangladesh, the petition said that these instances reflected a 'growing pattern of deportations conducted by the Assam Police and administrative machinery through informal 'push back' mechanisms, without any judicial oversight or adherence to the safeguards envisaged by the Constitution of India or this court'.
Hindustan Times
3 days ago
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
Former school teacher 'deported to Bangladesh' returns home in Assam
Morigaon , A former school teacher, who was detained by Assam Police on the charges of being a foreigner and allegedly deported to Bangladesh, returned to his home in Morigaon district on Saturday, an officer said. Khairul Islam and eight others were picked up from different parts of the district on May 24 but family members claimed they were not told about their whereabouts. Islam's family had claimed that they saw him in a video purportedly showing him being taken to Bangladesh. They claimed he was "shot at" at the India-Bangladesh border in South Salmara Mankachar district. Islam's family members claimed that the police brought him home on Saturday morning. An officer of the Assam Border Police said that his medical check-up was conducted and he was found to be physically fit. The officer, however, refused to divulge details on where he was detained. The other eight persons who were picked up along with Islam have been shifted to a detention centre at Matia in Goalpara district, police said. Their family members claimed that their appeals were pending before either the Supreme Court or the Gauhati High Court. Islam's wife Rita Khanam had said on Friday that her husband is a former school teacher and a law-abiding citizen. She claimed that policemen had come to their residence at night, and took him away, saying they have some questions to ask and he can return home after that but since then the family was not given any information about his whereabouts till the video surfaced. Islam, along with his three siblings, was declared a foreigner by the Foreigner Tribunals in 2016, against which he had approached the Gauhati High Court. The High Court had upheld the FT decision, leading to Islam's detention in 2018. He was set free in 2020 following a Supreme Court general order for releasing all detainees who have spent more than two years term. Khanam claimed that her husband's appeal against the FT decision is pending before the Supreme Court. Islam's mother Jahanara was a member of the village panchayat in the last term and all members of the family, including the former school teacher, had voted in the just concluded rural polls in the state, the family claimed. Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had asserted that the detection of foreigners in the state will be expedited and action against Declared Foreign Nationals will be taken as per the law. The chief minister had said that the course open to those who have been declared foreigners by the Tribunal is to appeal to the High Court. If some say that they have appeals pending before the Supreme Court or High Court, then no action will be taken against them but those who have not appealed in the higher judiciary, will be pushed back, he said. The chief minister pointed out that if a person who is once declared a foreign national by the Tribunal does not challenge it in the court then their ''right to stay in Assam is forfeited''.
Indian Express
6 days ago
- Politics
- Indian Express
His case pending in Supreme Court, ex-govt teacher ‘picked up from Assam home and pushed into Bangladesh', says family
A family from Assam, whose citizenship case is being heard in the Supreme Court, has alleged that one of their members, Khairul Islam, a 51-year-old former government school teacher, was picked up from their home in the state's Morigaon district and 'pushed' into Bangladesh by security forces. The family said it got to know of this at 11 am on May 27 through a video uploaded on social media by a Bangladeshi journalist, purportedly showing Khairul Islam in Bangladesh's Kurigram district, near the Boraibari border. The Indian Express spoke to Islam's wife, Rita Khanam, and daughter, Afreen, both of whom said he is the person in the video. His lawyer Avijit Roy said Islam had been declared a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal in 2016, and that his appeal against the order is being heard in the Supreme Court. The Indian Express sent detailed queries on the video and the allegations made in it to the BSF Guwahati Frontier and the Assam Police. No response was received. While the BSF did not comment on the Islam matter, in a statement Tuesday it said it had 'thwarted an infiltration attempt by a large group of Bangladeshi nationals'. 'In the early hours of May 27, vigilant BSF troops deployed at the Indo-Bangladesh International Border in district South Salmara-Mankachar, Assam, observed suspicious movement of Bangladesh nationals approaching towards the International Boundary from the Bangladesh side with the intention to cross into Indian territory. Acting swiftly, BSF troops challenged them to prevent their unauthorised entry into Indian territory. The Bangladeshi mob subsequently retreated back into Bangladesh,' it said. On Wednesday, a delegation of 11 AIUDF leaders submitted a memorandum to Assam Governor Lakshman Prasad Acharya against 'inhuman treatment through pushbacks'. One of them, Mankachar MLA Aminul Islam, spoke about the alleged 'pushback' of 14 people, including Islam. 'Fourteen people were deported across the border from my constituency, Mankachar. But they were kept in the no-man's land because the Bangladesh forces are not ready to accept them, and neither is the BSF ready to accept them. This is completely inhuman treatment going on there. One of them is Khairul Islam, whose review petition is pending, and the matter is sub judice. No one can be sent there like this… The issue must be discussed amicably with Bangladesh. There are many more people being picked up by the police in the state. This is politics of fear,' he alleged. In the video, Islam is purportedly seen standing in a field and introducing himself as a primary school teacher from Khanda Pukhuri village in Morigaon. He can be heard alleging that on May 23, he was taken by police from his home to the Matia transit camp – the dedicated detention centre to house 'illegal foreigners' in Assam – and that on Monday, he was put into a bus with his hands tied. 'At around 4 am this morning, 14 of us were pushed across the border to here,' he can be heard alleging in the video. Islam was among nine people from the Morigaon district detained by the local police on May 23. Police had stated that all nine had been declared foreigners by the Foreigners Tribunals in the state. 'The police came to our house late on May 23, after 11 pm. They told us that he was being taken for some reports. After that, we only got the news that he had been taken to the Matia detention camp. But we didn't know what exactly was happening. And today, we saw the video of him from Bangladesh,' his wife claimed. Islam had been declared a foreigner by a tribunal in 2016. He appealed against this order in the Gauhati High Court, which upheld the tribunal order in 2018, after which he was placed under detention for two years in the Tezpur Central Jail. According to his family, he worked as a teacher at the Thengsali Khandapukhuri Lower Primary School, a government school in his village, but was not re-engaged by the school after his detention. After the High Court dismissed his case, Islam and three of his siblings, who had also been declared foreigners, petitioned the Supreme Court against the orders through a Special Leave Petition filed in 2018. In the meantime, he was released on bail in 2020 following a general Supreme Court order with directions to release on bail those individuals who had been in detention for over two years. While disposing of an interlocutory appeal connected to the case on October 18, 2023, a Supreme Court bench, headed by then Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud, had issued an interim direction 'to the effect that no coercive steps shall be taken against them,' while referring to Islam's three siblings, who the authorities had not detained. Referring to Islam, the court had noted that, 'Counsel for the petitioner submits that the first petitioner has already been released from the detention centre after two years following the general direction of this Court.' In the last hearing of the case on December 17, 2024, a Supreme Court bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B Varale ordered that it be tagged with 'SLP (C) No. 4239 and connected cases'. 'Leave granted. Hearing expedited. Original record from the stage of Tribunal be summoned. Interim order(s) granted earlier to continue,' the order stated. Their case is now part of several similar citizenship matters, which have been tagged together and will be heard by the court in due course of time. The video of Islam coincided with tensions on the Indo-Bangladesh Border along Assam's Mankachar and Bangladesh's Kurigram district between the BSF and the Border Guard Bangladesh. Media in Bangladesh quoted the Border Guard Bangladesh as saying that an attempt to push 14 individuals into Bangladesh through the border there had been 'thwarted'.
