KOLKATA: Sunali Khatun, a migrant worker from Birbhum district in West Bengal who was deported to Bangladesh by police on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national and later brought back to India following a SC directive, gave birth to a baby boy at Rampurhat Government Medical College and Hospital.
Sunali, a resident of Murarai in Birbhum, was arrested by Delhi Police in June last year and pushed back to Bangladesh even though she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy.
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam said that both the mother and the newborn are stable.
“I have spoken to the doctors at the hospital. They have told me that both mother and the infant are stable and are doing fine,” Islam said.
Expressing happiness, Abhishek Banerjee, national general secretary of Trinamool Congress, in an X handle post today said, “I am deeply moved and genuinely heartened to learn that Sunali Khatun has given birth to a healthy baby boy at Rampurhat Medical College, Birbhum. This moment of joy feels even more profound against the backdrop of the injustice she was subjected to."
"In a shocking abuse of power, she was falsely branded as a Bangladeshi and forcibly deported to Bangladesh by the Delhi Police and the Union Government. Her ordeal was a violation of dignity that no citizen, least of all a pregnant mother, should ever be forced to endure. Yet, through it all, Sunali displayed extraordinary courage and resolve,” he added.
Pregnant Sunali, along with her eight-year-old son Sabir, returned to India on 5 December after spending more than six months in Bangladesh.
Four others among the six Bengali-speaking Indians, including Sunali and Sabir, who were pushed back to Bangladesh by the Delhi Police on suspicion of being Bangladeshis, stayed back in the country.
All six belong to the same family and hail from Birbhum in West Bengal.