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Mohammad Sahjanah with his son on Wednesday.
Credit: Special arrangement
Guwahati: Mohammad Shahjahan's wife was expecting her first baby when he had gone to his in-law's house in neighbouring Bangladesh in 1988 and was caught there for illegal migration and sent to jail.
On Wednesday morning, son of Sahjahan, a resident of Durgapur village in Tripura's Sepahijala district, physically met his father for the first time in 37 years, hours after he returned home.
"It's a feeling I cannot express now. It feels like I have come to heaven. I have met my son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren for the first time today," Sahjahan, now 62, told reporters on Wednesday, a day after he returned to Tripura through the Srimantapur Land Customs Stations near Agartala. His wife gave birth to their first child after he had gone to Bangladesh.
"The police raided my in-law's house and put me in Comilla jail. The police tortured me for the first 14 days. They hung me from a ceiling fan, threw hot water on me, smeared chilli powder and asked me many questions," he said. He was jailed for 11 years for illegal entry and some other charges but Shahjahan could not come back as he failed to contact his family for the required documents. He was subsequently jailed on some other charges.
Based on a news item about Sahjahan's imprisonment in Bangladesh, Zara Foundation, an NGO stepped in and took up the matter with Bangladesh authorities.
According to Mosahid Ali, chairman of Zara Foundation, Sahjahan was initially jailed for eight years in Comilla jail but was later kept imprisoned illegally. "Like him, many Indians are languishing in Bangladesh jails. Efforts must be taken by the Indian government to bring them back," Ali told reporters.
BSF personnel welcomed Sahjahan on his return, and his family members and relatives who came to receive him offered garlands.