Twenty-nine-year-old Haidar Ali Ashraf Ali and 34-year-old Fatima Gofar Shaikh will now serve just days in jail, fined Rs 500 each, before being deported to Bangladesh. Their crime: entering and staying in India without valid passports.
A Navi Mumbai court earlier this month convicted the two Bangladeshi nationals for violating Rule 5 of The Passport (Entry Into India) Rules, 1950, by residing in India without valid papers. The prosecution had also alleged forgery of identity documents, but agencies reported that Additional Sessions Judge (Belapur) C.V. Marathe threw out that claim.
According to reports, Additional Public Prosecutor Sandhya Mhatre said that the two were arrested in January this year from Koprigaon, Sector 26, with one of them allegedly producing a forged Aadhaar card during the investigation.
The prosecution also pressed that such illegal stay posed potential threats to the safety and security of India.
However, the defence reportedly argued that the two Bangladeshi nations were illiterate and poor, and they came to India in search of means of livelihood, not with any ill intention.
The court agreed that the two had no criminal antecedents and that it was not the prosecution's case that the accused were involved in any anti-social activities after entering India without valid documents.
After finding them guilty of violating the passport rules, the court handed them each an 11-month sentence and a Rs 500 fine. However, they have been in custody since January 14, 2025. The court granted a setoff for the time already served, i.e., 10 months and 27 days as on the order date.
The court then directed the Navi Mumbai police chief to arrange for the two to be deported to Bangladesh via the Bangladesh Embassy.
[With inputs from agencies]