‘We are not from Bangladesh, we are Indian. Why did they do this to us?’

“I was scared that my child’s nationality would change if he was born in Bangladesh,” says a heavily pregnant Sunali Khatun, 25, who returned to India earlier this month after being deported to the neighbouring country in June.

Ms Khatun, a domestic worker from India’s eastern state of West Bengal, was detained in Delhi with her husband, Danish Sheikh, and their eight-year-old son, and deported to Bangladesh on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. Bangladeshi authorities later jailed the family for entering the country unlawfully.

Her deportation made national headlines and was stridently criticised by the West Bengal government, who accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led federal government of deporting her without cause. She is among hundreds of people who have been detained and deported to Bangladesh in the past couple of months on suspicion of being illegal immigrants.

Delhi has not provided official data about these deportations, but top sources in the Bangladesh government had earlier told the BBC that in May alone, more than 1,200 people were “illegally pushed in”. The same month, the government-run All India Radio reported that about 700 people had been sent back from Delhi.

Crackdowns on alleged Bangladeshi immigrants are not new in India. The two countries share close cultural ties and a porous 4,096km (2,545-mile) border spanning five states. West Bengal, like others along the frontier, has long seen waves of migration as people sought work or fled religious persecution.

But rights activists say the recent deportations target Muslims who speak Bengali – the language spoken in both West Bengal and Bangladesh – and the exercise is being conducted without due process.

Ms Khatun and her family, along with three neighbours – all Bengali-speaking Muslims – were deported after Delhi’s Foreign Regional Registration Office said they lacked documents proving their legal entry or stay in India. Her seven-year-old daughter was left behind, as she was staying with relatives when the family was detained.

Under protocol, authorities must verify a suspected illegal migrant’s claim with the home state. West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board chairman Samirul Islam told the BBC this was not done in Ms Khatun’s case.

The BBC has written to Delhi’s home department that monitors deportations.

In December, India’s Supreme Court asked the federal government to allow Ms Khatun and her son to return on “humanitarian grounds” while her citizenship was investigated. She has since been living with her parents in West Bengal. Her husband, released on bail, remains in Bangladesh with a relative.

Ms Khatun, says she has mixed feelings about being allowed back in India.

She is relieved that her baby, due in January, will be an Indian citizen by birthright, but is anxious about her husband, whom she has not seen for more than three months since they were held in separate prison cells in Bangladesh.

On video calls, she says, he breaks down often, saying that he wants to come home.

“We are not from Bangladesh, we are Indian. Why did they do this to us?” Ms Khatun asks.

She alleges that about a week after being detained by the Delhi police, her family and their neighbours were flown to the India-Bangladesh border and “pushed” across by paramilitary personnel from the Border Security Force (BSF).

“They left us in a dense forest [in Bangladesh] with lots of rivers and streams,” she alleges and adds that when they tried to enter India by a route shown to them by locals, BSF guards beat up some in the group, including her husband, and then led them back into the forest they had initially been brought to.

The BBC has sent questions to the BSF seeking a response to Ms Khatun’s allegations.

With help from locals, the group travelled to Dhaka, where they wandered for days with little food or water before being arrested and jailed. She says the prison food was inadequate for a pregnant woman and that her cell had no toilet.

“I was scared because it was just my son and me. All we did was cry,” she says.

The BBC has written to Bangladesh’s home and prisons departments for a response to Sunali’s allegations.

Back in India, her family was making desperate trips to courts to prove her citizenship so that she could be brought back. Her case is being heard by the Supreme Court.

“My family has been torn apart,” Ms Khatun says, as she sits in her parent’s one-room shanty in West Bengal. With two young children and another one on the way, she says she doesn’t know how she’s going to feed all of them.

But she is sure about one thing.

“We may not make enough money to eat three square meals if we live here, but I will never go back to Delhi,” she says.

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