Indian High Court Orders Rs 200,000 Compensation for Another Muslim Woman Sent to Bangladesh

The Gauhati High Court has directed the Assam government to pay Rs 200,000 in compensation to the son of a Bengali Muslim woman who was allegedly forcibly sent to Bangladesh.

The woman, Jahanara Begum, was declared a foreigner by a Foreigners’ Tribunal in 2019 and was forcibly pushed into Bangladesh in June. Foreigners’ Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies in Assam that determine a person’s citizenship based on documents.

In another similar case on Monday, the High Court ordered the Assam government to pay Rs 200,000 in compensation for forcibly sending a woman named Momtaz Begum to Bangladesh in violation of due procedure. This is reportedly the first time a court has imposed a penalty on the state government for forcibly sending someone to Bangladesh in violation of the rules.

In Jahanara Begum’s case, her son filed a petition challenging the manner in which his mother was detained and deported. The court observed that the authorities deported Jahanara Begum without providing her or any adult member of her family with a copy of the tribunal’s order. As a result, she was deprived of the opportunity to challenge the decision before the High Court.

Jahanara Begum had earlier challenged the tribunal’s 2019 decision before the High Court. In April, the court found that the tribunal had failed to consider the testimony of three of the four witnesses. It therefore set aside the earlier decision and sent the matter back to the tribunal for reconsideration.

On May 29, Jahanara Begum appeared before the tribunal and sought an adjournment of the hearing, but her request was rejected. She was subsequently taken into the custody of the border police. Her family initially could not trace her. Later, her son learned that she was being held at a detention centre, and on June 5, he received a certified copy of the tribunal’s fresh order.

According to the Border Security Force (BSF), the border police handed Jahanara Begum over to them on June 13, and she was sent to Bangladesh during the night between June 13 and 14.

Over the past four years, Assam’s tribunals have stripped around 130,000 people of their Indian citizenship. Higher courts have frequently criticised the process as arbitrary and discriminatory against poor and marginalised people.

In May last year, Assam’s BJP government launched a crackdown on people declared foreigners, like Jahanara Begum. They were picked up from their homes across the state and forcibly sent to Bangladesh late at night. These “declared foreigners” are generally long-term residents of Assam whose families and properties are there, but who have failed to prove their citizenship before the tribunals with documentary evidence.