Can an Indian citizen be blindfolded and pushed across the border into another country in the middle of the night? The story of Sunali Khatun, a resident of Birbhum in West Bengal, sounds like something out of a horror film but it is a bitter reality from June 2025.
Sunali claims that in June 2025, she, her husband, their minor son, and three others were forcibly sent from India to Bangladesh.
Although Sunali and her eight-year-old son returned to India in December 2025 following the Supreme Court’s intervention, the memory of that terrifying experience still leaves her shaken.
Blindfolded and ‘Forcibly Deported’
Sunali Khatun worked in Delhi as a domestic worker, doing household chores to make ends meet. On the night of 20 June 2025, at around 8:00 PM, Delhi Police detained her husband. Sunali then went to the police station with her relatives to secure his release, where they were allegedly asked to produce their identity documents.
Sunali claims she had her Aadhaar card, PAN card, ration card, and even her parents’ identity documents from 2002. Despite this, she says the police declared the documents “fake” and detained all of them.
Sunali recalls:
“We were kept at the police station for two days and then at a place called ‘Lal Kothi’ for seven days. After that, we were put on a bus and taken to somewhere in Haryana. There, we were blindfolded and made to board an aircraft (helicopter). When the blindfolds were removed, we found ourselves inside a dark lorry.”
Left in a Forest, Threatened at Gunpoint
Sunali claims they were eventually dropped in a dense forest. At the time, she was one month pregnant and accompanied by her eight-year-old son.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.