At ‘nowhere woman’ Sunali’s Birbhum home; 6-year-old keeps crying for her mom
Times of India | 26 August 2025
KOLKATA: What was supposed to be a short vacation to her grandparents' home in Birbhum's Paikar has turned into a three-month-long stay for little Afrina. She fails to understand why her parents and elder brother haven't met her, or why she can't even connect a phone call to them. Afrina misses her family, her friends in school and the neighbourhood in Delhi's Rohini where she used to stay. Her questions unanswered, the 6-year-old can't stop crying.
Afrina's mother Sunali is lodged in a Bangladesh jail with her husband and son along with three of another Birbhum family. Suspected of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, the six were picked up in June by Delhi cops in Rohini where the families used to work as ragpickers, and pushed to Bangladesh. They had shown their documents, but cops or BSF didn't accept those. Ironically, a Bangladesh court sent them to jail this month because Indian documents were found on them. | Gold Rates Today in Kolkata | Silver Rates Today in KolkataAfrina was lucky to escape the Delhi Police drive since she was already in Birbhum. With a pregnant Sunali expecting the birth of her third child any day now, her mother Jyotsna had brought Afrina to her home. The Class II student, who knows nothing of her parents' ordeal, broke down as she spoke to TOI over the phone. "I have not seen Maa for three months," Afrina said. Through her whimpers, the little one couldn't even pronounce the name of her school clearly.
Jyotsna doesn't know how to stop Afrina from crying. "I don't even have money to buy her a chocolate... maybe that would've pacified her for a while. We are poor... we dep-ended on Sunali's income.
"'If Sunali isn't released soon, we won't survive' Sunali's mother Jyotsna was once a ragpicker in Rohini before she met with an accident and had to stop working.
Sunali's father doesn't have a source of income either. "Asthma forced me to stop working. I don't own any land... if Sunali isn't released soon, we won't be able to survive," said Bhodu Sk, adding that the help received from Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam was their only hope.