Tied, blindfolded, pushed into Bangladesh: Indian Muslim man recounts forced entry
During his confession recorded on 21 October before Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Zakir Hossain, Shibu said Indian officers tied his hands behind him, covered his eyes and placed him on a flight to Kolkata
One morning in early July, Shibu Syed Jafri, a 24-year-old Muslim man from India's Lucknow, was dragged from his bed in a Delhi slum by police, hand-tied and blindfolded, and put on a plane. This is how Shibu described his journey that ended with him being forced across the Bangladesh border at gunpoint to a Dhaka court.
During his confession recorded on 21 October before Dhaka Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Md Zakir Hossain, Shibu said Indian officers tied his hands behind him, covered his eyes and placed him on a flight to Kolkata.
After being moved from place to place for three days, he said he was taken to a border area, where officers removed his blindfold and ordered him to "run into the croplands," at gunpoint.
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Shibu said he crossed the border without encountering Bangladeshi border guards and somehow made his way to Dhaka, where police detained him in front of the Kamalapur Customs House on 15 July.
How police found him
According to the case statement, Sub-Inspector Nur Nabi of Shahjahanpur Police Station received a call via the national emergency service 999 that evening.
Locals had surrounded a man who "could not speak Bangla" and appeared to be a foreign national.
"When I reached the spot, people had already apprehended him," Nur Nabi wrote. "He was asking for help in Hindi. The situation was tense."
Shibu identified himself in Hindi and said he was from Ameer Nagar in Lucknow.
He told police he had been forcibly taken from Delhi, flown out, transported to the border while tied and blindfolded, and pushed across before wandering for days around Kamalapur.
Police initially detained him under Section 54 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The case for illegal entry was later filed on 12 August.
Communication challenges
Shibu does not speak Bangla or English.
His statement was recorded in Hindi with the help of his court-appointed lawyer, panel counsel Hakim Bahaul Haque Simon from the Dhaka District Legal Aid Office.
However, Shibu's dialect makes it hard for non native Hindi speakers to understand him.
"The biggest hurdle was communication. He could not explain how he reached Kamalapur from the border. But we are trying our utmost to have him reunited with his family in Lucknow," Hakim said.
Nur Nabi told the court he tried for several days to understand Shibu's route from the border but failed, after which the case was transferred to another Hindi-speaking sub-inspector.
The First Information Report noted Shibu to be 30 years old.
What the confession states
In his court confession, Shibu gave his full name as Shibu Syed Zafri, son of Mofid and Shain, from Ameer Nagar in Lucknow.
He said he had been taken by air from Uttar Pradesh and "forcibly sent to Bangladesh". He insisted he did not cross the border voluntarily.
A review of the case file states that when surrounded by locals at 11:30pm on 15 July, Shibu could not explain how he arrived in Bangladesh.
The court has directed the officer-in-charge of Shahjahanpur Police Station to conduct a detailed investigation. 24 November has been set for the submission of the police report.
A copy of the order has been sent to the police station for action.
Azfal Hossain, the investigating officer of the case, told TBS that they have yet to determine how Shibu entered Bangladesh and made his way to Kamalapur.
A wider pattern
Human rights groups have long raised concerns about "push-ins"—the practice of Indian authorities forcibly sending people across the border into Bangladesh.
More than 2,000 people have reportedly been pushed in since 7 May, including over 200 Rohingya refugees.
Shibu, who says he never intended to cross into Bangladesh at all, is now one of them.
His legal counsel hopes he will eventually be sent home, but for now, he remains in custody in Dhaka awaiting the next hearing.
The Business Standard contacted at least two officials of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka, but they did not respond to our queries regarding Shibu's situation.
