By Anant Gupta
In June, the Modi government branded Mehebub Sheikh a Bangladeshi and forced him across India’s eastern border. Now, the Election Commission of India has added him to its voter rolls after an intensive vetting process.
The 39-year-old mason was picked up by the police in Maharashtra on the mere suspicion of being Bangladeshi. He repeatedly told the police that he was from Murshidabad in West Bengal and had never been to Bangladesh.
Still, within days of detention, he was forced into Bangladesh by the Border Security Force, at gunpoint, he said. Eventually, he was brought back to India because the authorities had failed to follow the process laid down by the home ministry for such deportations.
Nine months on, Sheikh feels more vindicated than ever before because his name features on the voter list published by the Election Commission on Saturday. This comes after a four-month long, statewide special intensive revision meant to weed out, among others, undocumented migrants.
When asked how he felt on seeing his name on the voter list after the ordeal of being branded a Bangladeshi, Sheikh, who has since returned to his masonry job in a suburb north of Mumbai, responded by underlining his nationality.
“I am an Indian citizen and not a Bangladeshi,” he told Scroll over the phone. “My father and my grandfather were born here. I have never seen Bangladesh. I don’t even know anybody from there.”
For him, being included in the voter roll was a final vindication that “the police did what they did for no reason”.
Sheikh is listed as a voter in the Bhagabangola Assembly constituency of Murshidabad district. His village of Balia Hasennagar is located about 25 km away from the Bangladesh border.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.