Help bring back two Assam women pushed into Bangladesh: Gaurav Gogoi to Jaishankar

Assam Congress President Gaurav Gogoi. File | Photo Credit: ANI

GUWAHATI

Congress MP Gaurav Gogoi has urged Union External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to help trace and bring back two Assam women pushed into Bangladesh two months after the Gauhati High Court asked a Foreigners’ Tribunal to review its 2019 decision that they were non-citizens.

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A Foreigners’ Tribunal is a quasi-judicial body established under the Foreigners (Tribunal) Order of 1964 to decide whether a person living in India is an illegal immigrant or a legal citizen. Assam has 100 functioning Foreigners’ Tribunals.

The whereabouts of Jahanara Begum of Bagariguri village and Mumtaz Begum of Dhing Gaon — both in central Assam’s Nagaon district — remain unknown since they were sent across the India-Bangladesh border on the intervening night of June 13 and 14, Mr. Gogoi said in a letter to Mr. Jaishankar on Friday (October 2, 2026).

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The Foreigners’ Tribunal in Nagaon declared the two women as foreigners in 2019. They challenged the verdicts before the Gauhati High Court, which set aside the Foreigners’ Tribunal’s opinions in April, and asked it to revisit their cases afresh because material evidence had not been properly considered.