Deported Jahanara and Mumtaz still ‘missing’, Gauhati HC warns state, Centre says search on

As two women pushed across the border into Bangladesh before their final appeals were decided in court remain “missing”, the Gauhati High Court has demanded answers from the Assam government on when the Nagaon Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) prepared its opinion regarding them.

On October 7, a Bench of Justices Kalyan Rai and Pranjal Das warned that if the state failed to provide the date and time as to when the opinion regarding Jahanara Begum and Mumtaz Begum being “foreigners” was readied, the court would presume that “it was not made ready within the appropriate time” before the two were taken into custody by police.

While the two cases are being heard separately by the same Bench, a near-identical order has been given regarding both of them, which was uploaded on the High Court’s website on Thursday.

At the hearing, the Centre told the court that the Ministry of External Affairs was trying to trace the women. Its counsel said an inquiry into their whereabouts was ongoing and sought more time.

It was only after the families moved the High Court that the authorities disclosed what had happened to the women. On June 22, the state government’s counsel told the court that both women had been handed over to the BSF. Two days later, the Centre’s counsel said they had been deported to Bangladesh on the intervening night of June 13 and 14.

In September, the court directed the Assam government to probe when the Nagaon FT decided its fresh opinion regarding Jahanara, 47, and Mumtaz, 43, leading to their deportation, and said: “…if required, the said authority shall seize and send the Tribunal’s computer which was used to prepare the said opinion to forensic experts to find out the time when the said opinion was finally made ready.”

The cases of Jahanara and Mumtaz, with the court ordering Rs 2 lakh each as compensation to their families, are strikingly similar. A resident of Bagariguri village in Nagaon district, Jahanara got relief from the High Court in April this year, which set aside a 2019 opinion by the Nagaon FT declaring her a foreigner, saying it had failed to take into account the testimony of three of four witnesses.

Story continues below this ad

Her son Mujahidul Islam said the court sent the case back to the FT for a fresh decision, and that Jahanara accordingly appeared before the tribunal on May 29. At the hearing, he said, the Member, Tribunal, refused Jahanara’s plea for an adjournment and called the Border Police, who took her away before a fresh opinion had been passed by the FT.

The state government claims the FT once again declared her a foreigner that day, and that police held her from near the tribunal campus around 1.30 pm. A police diary records her arrival at the Juria police station at 4.02 pm. By evening, her fingerprints and photograph had been uploaded on the Foreigners’ Identification Portal, Assam’s database of declared foreigners.

Even as the family looked for her, Mujahidul said, he heard on June 1 that Jahanara had been moved to the Matia holding centre for alleged foreigners in Goalpara, more than 250 km away. He said he met Jahanara there the next day and applied for a certified copy of the FT’s new opinion, which was released only on June 5.

When a relative went to Matia the next day with a vakalatnama, the family was told that the Border Police had already taken her away.

Story continues below this ad

The state told the court that on June 2, the Nagaon District Commissioner issued an order under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, giving Jahanara 24 hours to leave the country. Police then took her to the Eraligool holding centre in Sribhumi district on June 3, more than 400 km from Nagaon, from where she was moved to the BSF’s charge on June 13. In an affidavit to the court, the BSF said she was deported the same day, adding it had “no role in the process of determination of a foreigner” and only executed the state government’s orders. It also said that Jahanara was deported in the presence of the Assam Police and an anti-human trafficking unit.

The family, which was still in the dark and had moved the High Court, got an order from the court on June 22 telling the BSF not to expel her. On June 24, the Centre’s counsel told the court that she had already been deported.

As reported by The Indian Express earlier, Mumtaz similarly got relief from the High Court in April, which said the FT had failed to consider the evidence on record and sent the matter back for fresh consideration. But on May 30, when Mumtaz appeared before the tribunal, she was told she would be arrested, and was taken to the office of the SP (Border) in Nagaon and her details uploaded onto the Foreigners Identification Portal.

She was kept at the Nagaon Sadar Police Station, and on June 1, like Jahanara, shifted to the Matia camp. Papers later produced in court showed that on June 3, the same day as Jahanara, Mumtaz was moved from Matia to the Eraligool centre, and on June 13, pushed across the border by the BSF.

Story continues below this ad

The state has defended its actions saying that declared foreigners “vanish from their last known address”, and that given their status, they are not entitled to the full rights of a citizen.

In their September 3 order, Justices Kalyan Rai Surana and Susmita Phukan Khaund disagreed with this. They also called the Nagaon District Commissioner’s expulsion orders as “farcical”, given that the women were by then already lodged at the Matia detention centre. The court also held that the officer’s direction that the women leave India within 24 hours “is a totally absurd proposition”.

The Bench invoked the Supreme Court’s decision in Roy V D vs State of Kerala, which held that Article 21 provides protection “not only to citizens of India but also to aliens”.