"For the past decade, Mustafa Kamal Sheikh set up a makeshift stall opposite a police station in a working-class suburb of Mumbai. His speciality was jhalmuri, a fiery snack made of puffed rice and spices. The cops often came down for a bite and small talk. One day in June, two officers came to his house and asked for his ID."
"He showed them four, including a card that identified him as a voter in Indian elections. Kamal says the constables accused him of forging them and detained him. He denies the accusation. Kamal, 52, did not get a phone call or a lawyer. Over the next five days, he says the police and a team of India's Border Security Force flew him more than a thousand miles away, to the India-Bangladesh border."
"He recalls the guard saying, "If you return, we will shoot you.' He says he was part of a group that included a few dozen people all Muslims seized from Mumbai. He says the Indian border guards allowed him to return to India two days later, after videos went viral on Indian social media of him and two other expelled Indian Muslims sobbing near the border."
Mustafa Kamal Sheikh, a 52-year-old jhalmuri vendor in Mumbai, was detained after police accused him of forging identity documents. He had multiple IDs including an Indian voter card and was held without phone or lawyer. They were flown to the India-Bangladesh border by police and border guards. At the border a guard gave him 300 taka and ordered the group into Bangladesh, warning they would be shot if they returned. Viral videos of sobbing expelled men showing Indian addresses prompted returns. Human Rights Watch reported a crackdown in May after a deadly Kashmir attack; India blamed Pakistan, which denies involvement.
Read at www.npr.org
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