Seven-year-old Shahida had no idea her world was about to change that Tuesday in February. One moment she was with her parents in Cherai, a beach town in Kerala’s Ernakulam; the next, she was separated from them and put in a police jeep with her two brothers- all without any explanation.
On February 4, 2025, the children’s parents Dashrath Banerjee and Mari Bibi were arrested by the Ernakulam Rural police under multiple sections of the Foreigners Act, on suspicions of being undocumented Bangladeshi citizens illegally residing in Kerala. While Dashrath was taken to the Mattancherry sub-jail, Mari was sent a hundred kilometres away to the Viyyur Central Jail in Thrissur district.
