On May 24, Monowara Bewa, a 60-year-old woman from Sukhatikhata village in Assam’s border district of Dhubri, was called to the local police station “just to record a statement.” She never returned home.
Now her son, 27-year-old Iunuch Ali, has filed an urgent habeas corpus petition in the Supreme Court of India, alleging that his mother has been unlawfully detained and is at imminent risk of being “pushed back” across the India-Bangladesh border—a move he claims is not just illegal, but a direct violation of multiple Supreme Court orders.
The top court has agreed to hear the matter next week.
Ali states in his petition, accessed by Maktoon, that he went to the Dhubri SP (Border) office the next day, 25 May, and was shown the orders of the Supreme Court to prove that her Civil Appeal is pending. However, the police officials refused to listen to the Petitioner or release his mother.
The petition, filed on May 30, seeks the immediate release of Monowara Bewa, who was declared a foreigner by a Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) in 2016 but has a pending appeal in the Supreme Court.
In 2016, a Foreigners Tribunal in Dhubri declared her a foreigner, rejecting the documents she provided to prove her Indian lineage. That decision was upheld by the Gauhati High Court in 2017. But in 2017, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Certificates issued by the Secretary of the Village Panchayat and granted leave against the order of the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court.
“There is a serious apprehension that the detenue may be subject to an illegal ‘pushback’ operation,” the petition states.
“The police cannot legitimize arrest by calling it as mere interrogation or routine investigation when the detainee has been in their custody since the evening of 24.05.2025, and has not been allowed any access to her family members.”
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.