Legacy derailed
With the West Bengal Transport Minister, Snehasish Chakraborty, announcing, in end-September, the virtual closure of trams, Kolkata’s heritage transport system is now facing an existential crisis.
The Calcutta High Court has ordered the deportation of a Bangladeshi woman by air to her country on her request as she is languishing in a correctional home well after the completion of her detention period for staying in India beyond the visa period.
Justice Debangshu Basak directed the superintendent of the correctional home at which the woman is lodged to take appropriate measures for the purpose of her deportation forthwith.
The court on Thursday directed that the superintendent of the correctional home will, if necessary, depute police personnel to accompany the Bangladeshi woman to the airport as she claimed that she wanted to travel to her country by air, till such time the petitioner is cleared by security for boarding.
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The woman, who worked at a dance bar in Mumbai, came to India with a valid passport and visa, but could not go back in time owing to Covid restrictions, her lawyer Soumyajit Das Mahapatra said.
She was apprehended by the Border Security Force (BSF) while trying to go back to Bangladesh illegally earlier this year and was handed over to Swarupnagar police station in North 24 Parganas district.
On pleading guilty, a district court sentenced the woman to imprisonment for 66 days and the detention period was completed on June 19. However, owing to lengthy administrative issues in the procedure of sending her back to her native country, the woman has been languishing in the correctional home despite having completed her sentence causing her to move the high court for redressal, Mahapatra said.
The court noted that a special secretary to the West Bengal government had on July 13 requested the central government for the immediate deportation of the petitioner by air. “Petitioner will purchase the air ticket for her flight and produce the same before the Superintendent of the Correctional Home at which she is presently lodged,” Justice Basak directed in the order on Thursday.
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