GUWAHATI

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi has urged Union External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to help trace and bring back two Assam women pushed into Bangladesh two months after the Gauhati High Court asked a Foreigners’ Tribunal to review its 2019 decision that they were non-citizens.

A Foreigners’ Tribunal is a quasi-judicial body established under the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order of 1964 to decide whether a person living in India is an illegal immigrant or a legal citizen. Assam has 100 functioning Foreigners’ Tribunals.

The whereabouts of Jahanara Begum of Bagariguri village and Mumtaz Begum of Dhing Gaon — both in central Assam’s Nagaon district — remain unknown since they were sent across the India-Bangladesh border on the intervening night of June 13 and 14, Mr. Gogoi said in a letter to Mr. Jaishankar on Friday (October 2, 2026).

The Foreigners’ Tribunal in Nagaon declared the two women as foreigners in 2019. They challenged the verdicts before the Gauhati High Court, which set aside the Foreigners’ Tribunal’s opinions in April, and asked it to revisit their cases afresh because material evidence had not been properly considered.

Following the High Court’s directions, Jahanara Begum and Mumtaz Begum appeared before the Foreigners’ Tribunal on May 29 and May 30, respectively. “Both were taken into custody shortly thereafter. Neither was provided an effective opportunity to obtain the fresh tribunal opinion and challenge it before the High Court,” Mr. Gogoi wrote.

The High Court heard the case again. In its September 3 order, it found that the Foreigners’ Tribunal “deliberately and wilfully delayed” issuing the certified copy of its opinion on Mumtaz Begum. Noting the “malice in law”, the court held that the State machinery prevented her from exhausting her right to approach the High Court.

The High Court recorded similar findings in Jahanara Begum’s case.

Expulsion orders

The High Court also examined the expulsion orders issued by the Nagaon District Commissioner on June 2, directing the women to remove themselves from India within 24 hours even though they were already in State custody.

“In the case of Mumtaz Begum, the court described the order as “farcical” and held that it could not reasonably have been complied with in the circumstances. Thereafter, both women were handed over to the Border Security Force and sent across the border through Gate No. 2 near Border Pillar No. 1339/MP,” Mr. Gogoi wrote in his letter.

“This is a matter in which your Ministry has already been made a party by the Gauhati High Court. I, therefore, request your personal intervention to ensure that both women are traced and, if they are indeed in Bangladesh, brought back to India at the earliest,” Mr. Gogoi urged Mr. Jaishankar.

Mr. Gogoi also requested the Ministry of External Affairs to direct the High Commission of India in Dhaka and the Assistant High Commission of India in Sylhet to actively pursue the matter with the relevant Bangladeshi authorities, and facilitate appropriate consular assistance and travel documentation for the return of the two women to India, subject to the necessary formalities.

The families of both women should be kept informed, through an appropriate point of contact, about the progress of the efforts to trace them, he further said.

“Two families in Nagaon have been searching for their daughter, mother and wife for months. These two women should not simply disappear after being taken into State custody and sent across an international border,” Mr. Gogoi said.