Repatriated Bengal woman Sunali Khatun discharged from hospital; husband, 3 others still in Bangladesh

Kolkata: Migrant Sunali Khatun, who returned to India on December 6 after being pushed into Bangladesh in June, was discharged from a hospital in West Bengal’s Birbhum district and returned home on Wednesday.

Despite that, Khatun said, she is not happy as her husband and three others are still stranded in the neighbouring country.

Khatun, a pregnant woman who, along with two of her family members and others, was pushed into Bangladesh in June this year on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant, had returned to India through the Malda border on December 6 with her eight-year-old son following the Supreme Court’s intervention.

However, her husband and three members of another family who have also been granted bail by a Bangladeshi court are yet to be repatriated. Arrested in Delhi in June, these migrants are residents of Murarai in Birbhum district.

After her return, Khatun was admitted to the Rampurhat hospital in Birbhum on December 7 and remained under the observation of doctors. She was discharged and returned to her in-laws' house at Paikar village on Wednesday afternoon.

"It is good that I am finally returning home, but my husband and others are still in Bangladesh. How can I feel happy?" she told reporters.

"I wish my husband and others would come back fast. I will be happy after we reunite," said Khatun, who is nine months pregnant.

On December 6, Khatun told PTI from her hospital bed: "It was torture living in a solitary cell of the Bangladeshi prison," recounting the experience of spending over a hundred days at the Chapai Nawabgunj correctional facility, charged as an "infiltrator".