Deportation for Afghan after 37 years of ‘illegal’ stay in Assam

Shahzada Khan has been given a ticket to fly home to Afghanistan, 37 years after he came to stay in Assam, build a house and raise a family. But his trip is unlikely to be one of homecoming.

Assam’s Border Police on Thursday put Mr. Khan, 55, on a flight to Delhi from where he will be made to fly to Kabul. He was brought to the airport here from a detention camp for foreigners in western Assam’s Goalpara, where he was lodged after being arrested on February 4, 2017 on charges of illegally entering the country.

Mr. Khan came to Assam in 1980, bought a plot of land near a police station in Mirza on the western edge of Guwahati and built a house. He married a local Assamese woman and went on to write a book that received a local award.

His wife Jahnara Begum and daughter Shaheen Jahan were at the airport to meet him before he was escorted to a Delhi-bound flight.

“The deportation of Shahzada Khan was due for some time. He is from Bakkhail village in Zarghon Shahr Paktika province of Afghanistan,” Mukul Saikia, superintendent of Border Police, said.

Mr. Khan’s deportation, police officials said, will not have an impact on the members of his family as they are Indians. “They are free to meet him in Afghanistan or whenever he comes to India with valid travel documents,” a police officer of Kamrup district, under which the airport falls, said.

Shaheen, in an emotional post on social media a few days ago, said: “My dad Shahzada Khan, from Mirza, was sent to jail on 4 February 2017 by a Foreigners’ Tribunal court after his name was mentioned in D-voters (doubtful voters) list. My question to you people... If my dad is an Indian why is he declared an illegal immigrant and is in jail, and if he is a foreigner why does he have passport, driving license, ration card, etc., from the Indian government?”

Shahzada Khan was not the only Afghan in the Goalpara detention camp. Sarowar Khan, also arrested for illegally entering India, has been awaiting deportation for more than two years now.

The Goalpara detention camp is one of six in Assam housing more than 900 people declared as foreigners.