What country deported Sunali Khatun to Bangladesh
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Executive summary
India — acting through its Delhi police, the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and with Border Security Force (BSF) involvement — detained and removed Sunali Khatun across the India–Bangladesh border in June, effectively deporting her to Bangladesh on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant [1] [2] [3].
1. The core fact: who pushed Sunali across the border
Reporting across national outlets is consistent that Sunali Khatun and several others were picked up in Delhi by police and subsequently sent out of India: the Delhi Police detained Khatun and her family in June and the FRRO issued the deportation order that led to their being pushed into Bangladesh on June 26 [2] [4] [1].
2. Agencies and the route: police, FRRO, and border forces
The sequence of events described in multiple reports shows an internal law‑enforcement arrest in Delhi, an FRRO deportation order, and a handover that involved the Border Security Force and a cross‑border push at a frontier sector — effectively meaning Indian agencies executed the removal into Bangladesh [4] [2] [5].
3. The Indian government’s legal posture and later interventions
After the deportation, Indian courts intervened: the Calcutta High Court quashed the deportation order and directed repatriation, the Centre challenged that order in the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court eventually procured humanitarian repatriation of Khatun and her son — steps that acknowledge the original action as an Indian deportation that was later contested in Indian courts [5] [4] [1].
4. Claims, counterclaims and the contested identity issue
Authorities labelled Khatun and others "suspected infiltrators," while Khatun’s family, West Bengal officials and civil‑society groups insisted she is an Indian citizen from Birbhum, West Bengal; political leaders including the West Bengal chief minister publicly accused Indian agencies of wrongly pushing Bengali‑speaking Indian citizens into Bangladesh [3] [6] [7].
5. Conditions after removal and Bangladesh’s response
After being pushed into Bangladesh, Khatun and the others were detained by Bangladeshi authorities under that country’s Passport and Foreigners Acts and held in Chapai Nawabganj prison before being granted bail; media accounts describe hardship, arrest, and court processes on the Bangladeshi side following the forcible entry [8] [1] [9].
6. How reporting frames responsibility and agendas
Indian outlets and regional political actors frame responsibility squarely on Indian state agencies — police, FRRO and ostensibly BSF operators — while state political actors use the case to allege broader targeting of Bengali‑speaking Muslims by central authorities; Bangladeshi judicial action and detention after the crossing complicate the narrative, creating a cross‑border legal tangle [10] [6] [11].
7. What the sources do not resolve here
Public reporting documents the detention in Delhi, the FRRO deportation order and the handover at the border, but open questions remain in the supplied reporting about which specific unit physically escorted or carried out the handover at which border point and whether standard procedural safeguards were followed at each stage; those operational details are not fully mapped out in the cited articles [2] [5] [1].
8. Bottom line
The weight of the sourced reporting establishes that Indian authorities deported Sunali Khatun to Bangladesh after detaining her in Delhi and issuing a deportation order via the FRRO, a removal that was later legally challenged inside India and led to her humanitarian repatriation [2] [4] [1].