Rampurhat (WB) | Six-year old Afreen wouldn't stop giggling even as her mother, Sunali Khatun, was being wheeled inside the Rampurhat Government Medical College and Hospital, amid relentless clicks of media shutterbugs on Saturday afternoon, when the winter chill of Bengal countryside had slowly begun taking effect.
Arrested by Delhi Police in June this year on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national and subsequently pushed to the neighbouring nation, Sunali, a migrant resident of Murarai in Birbhum who is in an advanced stage of pregnancy, was repatriated through the Malda border on Friday, alongside her minor son Sabir, following a Supreme Court directive.
She was admitted to the Rampurhat hospital in Birbhum on Saturday, where she will remain under observation of doctors till the expected childbirth happens later this month or beginning of the next.
"It was a torture living in a solitary cell of the Bangladeshi prison," Sunali told PTI from her hospital bed, recounting the experience of spending over a hundred days at the Chapai Nawabgunj correctional facility, charged as an "infiltrator".
"They allowed Sabir to stay with me. But my husband Danesh was taken away elsewhere. I am worried about him since he is yet to be brought back. I also worry about Sweety Bibi and her children since their fates also remain uncertain," she said, referring to the four other deportees who have been granted bail by a Bangladeshi court, but are yet to be repatriated.
All gums at the loss of her milk teeth, Afreen held tightly to her two-year elder brother, Sabir, at the hospital's gynecology and maternity ward, who she met after five months, not knowing exactly why she was kept apart from him and her parents.
Afreen escaped the deportation since she was living with her grandparents in Murarai, when her parents were arrested in Delhi.
"That's my mother," she said, pointing towards Sunali, who was being escorted to the delivery ward in the second floor of the building by hospital staff, grinning from ear to ear.
"I am so happy to be reunited with my girl and my parents. This wouldn't have happened without Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's support," Sunali said, adding she felt no major physical discomfort apart from a tinge of worry for her unborn child.
Eight-year old Sabir, on the other hand, acted all grown up.
"I have a bit of a throat ache. But, I am fine otherwise," he said, bemused at the media attention on his mother.
Hospital authorities said that they would allow both Sunali's children and her mother, Jyotsna Bibi, to stay at the medical facility till she is discharged following her delivery.
Dr Palash Das, Medical Superintendent and Vice Principal of the hospital, said this is a case that has international ramifications, and is being monitored by the Supreme Court.
“We will take utmost care of the patient as long as she is with us,” Das said.
Earlier in the day, Sunali was escorted by state health department officals from Malda, where she stayed overnight, to the Rampurhat hospital with a brief stop enroute at Paikar, her native village, where she was joined by her parents and daughter.
Trinamool Congress MP Samirul Islam, who steered the legal battle for Sunali and the five other deportees, described her return as "a victory of the oppressed against the might of the central government".
"They not only pushed an Indian citizen illegally to Bangladesh to fulfil a communal agenda, the Centre went to great lengths to try and stop her from returning. But, this is only half the battle won. The next challenge is to bring back the four others, who still remain stuck on the other side of the border," he said, after handing over Sunali to the hospital authorities.
TMC MLA from Murarai, Dr Mosarraf Hossain, told PTI that he would personally bear Sunali's medical expenses during her stay at the Rampurhat hospital.
