Madurai: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday asked the central government to file its response on a petition which alleged that a Bangladeshi woman was kept under ‘illegal custody’ in a community centre for nearly seven months in Kanyakumari district.
Accepting the impleading petition of the Ministry of External Affairs in the case, the division bench comprising Justices R. Subbiah and J. Nisha Banu made an oral observation, “Why the woman was not deported to Bangladesh if her visa had expired?”
The woman’s father, A. Mohamed Shamsel, filed a habeas corpus petition in the court alleging that the Kanyakumari police framed false charges (under Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, 1956) against his daughter who was visiting Kanyakumari as a tourist.
His daughter had visited India on a six-month tourist visa (from April 24 to July 23, 2016) from Bangladesh. After meeting her sister in Mumbai, she travelled to Kanyakumari where she was detained by the police and the judicial magistrate court I, Nagercoil remanded her to judicial custody.
When Mohamed Shamsel learned about the incident, he visited India and filed an affidavit before the judicial magistrate requesting her release. Meanwhile, his daughter gave a deposition before the magistrate explaining that she didn't commit any offence as alleged in the criminal case and she was only visiting as a tourist.
Accepting her deposition, the judicial magistrate court passed order in January directing the Kanyakumari SP to take steps to release her, the petitioner claimed. Instead, she was kept under illegal custody at a community centre for women and girls in the district for the last seven months, Shamsel said.
When the case came up for hearing today, the police who produced the Bangladeshi woman in court, denied the charges that she was booked under Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act. The PP said she was kept in the home only because her passport had expired on July 24, 2016.
The judges intervened and stated if there was no case pending against the woman, why were the police keeping her in the home instead of taking steps to deport her. Asking the central government to file its response, the court posted the next hearing to February 28.
