Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
Assam Congress president Gaurav Gogoi on Thursday questioned Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma over the whereabouts of a Nagaon woman who was allegedly “illegally pushed back” to Bangladesh in mid-June. Gogoi raised the issue after the woman’s son rejected Sarma’s claim that he was in touch with his mother every day.
Gogoi demanded that Mumtaz Begum be traced and reunited with her family immediately. Sharing on social media his October 2 letter to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on the “disappearance” of Mumtaz and another woman, he said the “ordeal of Mumtaz Begum’s family continues”.
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In his post on X, Gogoi said Mumtaz was sent across the India-Bangladesh border on the intervening night of June 13-14 without her family being informed. “They have been searching for her ever since. Even Bangladesh has begun looking for her,” the Congress deputy leader in the Lok Sabha said. He added that after his letter to Jaishankar seeking intervention to trace Mumtaz and facilitate her safe return, Sarma had said she was safe and in daily touch with her son.
Gogoi said, “But Momruz Ali, her son, says he has had no contact with his mother and has received no official word from the authorities about her whereabouts. The family has little means of locating her themselves.” He asked that if the chief minister knew she was safe, where she was and why she had not yet been reunited with her family. He also said the Gauhati High Court had criticised both the Foreigners Tribunal and the state machinery over the handling of her case, and had directed the Ministry of External Affairs to try to locate Mumtaz in Bangladesh and facilitate her return.
In the letter to Jaishankar, sent ahead of the October 6 Nagaon Lok Sabha bypoll, Gogoi had sought to know the whereabouts of Mumtaz Begum of Dhing Gaon and Jahanara Begum of Bagariguri, who were sent across the border on the same night. He had earlier said the Nagaon Foreigners Tribunal had declared both women foreigners in 2019, and that they had moved the Gauhati High Court against that ruling. The high court, he said, set aside the earlier order in April this year and sent both matters back to the Tribunal for fresh consideration because material evidence had not been properly examined.
According to Gogoi, Jahanara appeared before the Tribunal on May 29 and Mumtaz the next day in line with the court’s directions, but both were then taken into custody and deprived of the chance to get a fresh order from the Tribunal and challenge it before the high court. Seeking Jaishankar’s intervention, he had said, “individuals cannot simply disappear after being taken into state custody and pushed across an international border”. Reiterating the family’s demand, Gogoi said, “I reiterate Mumtaz’s family’s demand: trace her, on either side of the border, and bring her home.”
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
