Assam teacher ‘pushed’ into Bangladesh returns home two weeks after being detained

Assam teacher Khairul Islam, who had been “pushed” into Bangladesh on May 27 after picked by state border police, has returned to his ancestral home in Morigaon. His family told Scroll that he had reached home on Thursday evening.

“I pray that Muslims in Assam can remain in peace,” Islam told Scroll from his home at Khandapukhuri village on Eid.

As Scroll had reported, the 51-year-old former government teacher had been detained his home on the night of May 23 by the border police and forced out of Indian territory along the Bangladesh border four days later along with 13 others who were claimed to be “infiltrators”.

In a video posted on Facebook a Bangladeshi journalist from Bangladesh’s Rangpur division on May 27, Khairul Islam Islam could standing in a field between Assam’s South Salamar district and Bangladesh’s Kurigram district

“I told the Assam police that I am a teacher and asked them to respect me,” Islam had told the journalist. “My hands were tied like I was a thief and I was made to sit in the bus. Around 4 am, I reached here.”

Until December, Islam had been a teacher in a government school.

In 2016, he had been declared a foreigner by a tribunal. Two years later, the Gauhati High Court upheld the tribunal’s...

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