Bareilly, 07 Dec: A woman from Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly was detained for residing illegally in India for the past 35 years and was seeking a passport to enter Bangladesh.
During the passport verification procedure, the problem of nationality was revealed. Anita Devi, 55, and Mangal Sen, 60, had been married for more than three decades and had five children. Anita decided to go home last month to meet her ill mother.
“I had suspicions about her nationality when we cross-checked details mentioned in her application form,” said Sub-Inspector Rehmat Ali of the Deorania police station.
“Her hometown was listed as Narainpur Nazran in the Saharsa police station of Bangladesh’s Jessore district,? he claimed. Anita Devi was born Anita Das, the daughter of the late Keshav Das.
Ali stated that after receiving a tip against her from the Local Intelligence Unit, he contacted his superiors and filed an FIR against her for violating the Foreigners Act, of 1946. The complainant in the FIR filed with Deorania police station on December 3 is the S-I.
The SI stated in the FIR that the woman entered Indian territory in 1988, when she was 20 years old, across the porous India-Bangladesh border. She did this with the assistance of some human traffickers to work as domestic help and eventually arrived in Bareilly after travelling through many states. She fell in love with Mangal Sen, a labourer, and never left India after marrying him, Ali added.
He further claimed in the FIR that the woman had been residing illegally in India for the previous 35 years. Anita, according to a resident of Udaipur village, was a modest woman who had lived there for many years.
“After the woman’s arrest, her entire family, her husband and children are up in arms and running from pillar to post to resolve the issue.” “They couldn’t bear the thought of her languishing in jail,” he said.
According to a senior officer with the Bareilly Local Intelligence Unit, there is an established mechanism in such circumstances to apprehend illegal immigrants and notify the Intelligence Bureau about their presence in Bareilly.
According to Devendra Singh Dhama, inspector of Deorania police station, further investigation is ongoing while a legal opinion is sought on whether Anita should be deported back to her native country despite being married to an Indian national or allowed to stay here if she was not found involved in any illegal or anti-national activity.
According to legal experts, Article 21 of the Indian Constitution permits her to seek Indian citizenship while simultaneously being covered by Commonwealth Citizenship because she has been in India since before 2004.
