In the span of a few days, two deeply unsettling incidents have emerged from West Bengal — each distinct in timing and victims, yet connected by a common thread of citizenship uncertainty, document-driven fear and the broad sweep of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.
The first and most pressing is the case of 26-year-old Sunali Khatun from Birbhum’s Murarai area, pregnant at the time of her arrest, who was detained in Delhi in June along with her husband and 8-year-old son and subsequently deported to Bangladesh. She is currently jailed in Bangladesh, legally battling for her return to India.
The Sunali Khatun case
Sunali and her husband, Danish Sheikh, along with their son, were apprehended in Delhi’s K.N. Katju Marg in June, labeled as illegal immigrants. Their deportation was ordered by the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) and executed despite Sunali’s family presenting Aadhaar and PAN documents, as per a report in the Times of India.
What has triggered shock and outrage is the revelation that Sunali’s parents — Bhodu Sheikh and Jyotsna Bibi — are listed as voters in Bengal’s 2002 SIR-era electoral roll, under Murarai assembly constituency. Under the Citizenship Act, one route to being a citizen by birth is if one parent was an Indian citizen at the time of the person’s birth. In this case, both parents appear on a list of voters deemed legitimate by the Election Commission of India (EC).
The Calcutta High Court (HC) in September quashed the FRRO deportation order, noting the haste of the process and the mismatch in Sunali’s age (26 yrs, implying birth in 2000) and the claim of illegal entry in 1998. The court directed the Centre to repatriate her and her family within four weeks — a deadline that has lapsed, The Indian Express reported.
Her father told The Indian Express that “Now our names are on the list. What more do I need to have my pregnant daughter and her family back home?”
The ruling party in Bengal, the All India Trinamool Congress (TMC), has seized on these facts to accuse the opposition and the Centre of weaponising the SIR process and targeting poor Bengali-speaking migrants. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the TMC declared:
“To brand an expectant mother as an illegal infiltrator when her parents stand documented as Indian citizens in the 2002 electoral rolls, is not administrative oversight; it is a moral collapse orchestrated in the name of nationalism” as per a report in the Shillong Times.
Meanwhile, the Centre has moved the matter to the Supreme Court, resisting immediate compliance with the HC’s order.
A suicide amid SIR fears
In a parallel but separate another incident, Kakoli Sarkar, a 32-year-old homemaker originally from Dhaka, married and living in Titagarh for 15 years, ended her life by self-immolation. According to her mother-in-law, Kakoli had valid Indian documents, had voted in multiple elections, yet she lived with anxiety that her name was not on the 2002 voters’ list and that the SIR/NRC process might render her a suspect.
According to reports, on the night of her death she left a note stating that “No one is responsible for my death … I don’t feel well here … Please take care of my two daughters…”
Local police have detained her husband Sabuj Sarkar and her in-laws for questioning to determine if family pressure and documentation fears contributed to the tragedy, as reported
Impact and broader anxieties
These two cases are emblematic of a heightened climate of uncertainty across Bengal, where the SIR rollout and the spectre of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) continue to loom large. The EC’s announcement of SIR-drives across multiple states and Union Territories, including West Bengal, has reignited fears of exclusion, statelessness, and the sense that one’s right to remain is provisional, reported Sabrang India.
For Sunali’s family, the fact that her parents are on the 2002 roll should — in principle — secure her legitimacy. Yet she remains in a Bangladeshi prison and the deadlines set by the court remain unmet. For Kakoli, despite voting and living in India for years, the absence of a listing on the 2002 roll and the ongoing SIR process appears to have triggered existential dread.
Kakoli Sarkar’s suicide is not the only one
The fear that drove Kakoli Sarkar, to end her life amid growing panic over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls is not an isolated tragedy. Her death joins a disturbing pattern of despair spreading across Bengal — where citizenship and belonging have become matters of fear rather than procedure.
Haunted by NRC and citizenship fears
The recent death of 57-year-old Pradip Kar from Agarpara, North 24 Parganas, once again exposes the deepening distress among Bengal’s citizens over ongoing citizenship verification exercises. On October 28, 2025, Kar was found hanging in his home, leaving behind a suicide note that “NRC is responsible for my death.”
According to SabrangIndia’s report, his family said he had grown increasingly anxious after the Election Commission announced the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls across 12 states, including West Bengal — a move widely feared to be a prelude to an NRC-like process.
According to Barrackpore Police Commissioner Murlidhar Sharma, there were no signs of foul play, but Kar’s note made an explicit reference to the NRC. “The family told us he was deeply disturbed by NRC-related reports. After the SIR announcement, he appeared anxious but they assumed it was illness,” Sharma said. Kar’s sister recalled, “He used to tell us he would be taken away in the name of NRC.”
Kar’s death mirrors the earlier tragedy of 31-year-old Debashish Sengupta from Kolkata, who died by suicide in March 2024 after being gripped by fears linked to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). As reported by Sabrang India, Sengupta—visiting his grandparents in South 24 Parganas—was found hanging after confiding that his ailing father, a migrant from Bangladesh, could be denied citizenship for lack of documents. His family said he was “consumed by dread” that the new CAA rules would render many stateless.
These deaths are no longer isolated incidents but reflections of emerging fears consuming ordinary citizens where bureaucratic exercises meant to verify identity instead provoke panic about erasure. Across Bengal, whispers of “NRC coming through the backdoor” now carry the weight of lived fear, not mere speculation.
Related:
Kolkata man commits suicide, family claims CAA rules led him to it
Selective & discriminatory, CAA notification likely to be followed by NPR-NRC