The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on a petition filed by a 26-year-old man against the allegedly illegal detention of his mother by the Assam Police, Live Law reported.

The petition came amid an increase in detention of declared foreigners in Assam since May 23. Families say they have no information about the whereabouts of their relatives. Some of them have identified their missing relatives in videos from Bangladesh, alleging that they were forcibly sent across the border.

A bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Satish Chandra Sharma passed Monday’s order after hearing the habeas corpus petition filed by Iunuch Ali, who sought the release of his mother Monowara Bewa, PTI reported.

Bewa had been declared a foreigner by a Foreigners Tribunal in 2015 and sent to a detention centre in Kokrajhar in 2016, India Today reported. Her family had moved the Gauhati High Court and later the Supreme Court against her detention.

She was released on bail in December 2019 after the Supreme Court directed the release of persons in detention centres who had been there for more than three years, Live Law reported.

On May 24, Bewa was reportedly detained after being called to the Dhubri police station on the pretext of recording her statement, according to PTI. She remained in detention and had not been released, Live Law reported.

In addition to seeking the release of his mother, Ali in his petition also sought a direction to restrain the state government from “pushing” her back across the border and the conduct of an inquiry into her allegedly arbitrary arrest and detention.

During the hearing on Monday, advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Ali, cited the 2019 bail order. “...and the lady is thrown out,” Live Law quoted Sibal as saying. “And a superintendent of police decides that. Can your lordships imagine?”

The advocate also said that a civil appeal against an order issued by the High Court, which upheld the Foreigners Tribunal declaring Bewa as a foreigner, was pending before the Supreme Court since 2017.

In response to the bench suggesting that the present case could be tagged with the pending appeal, Sibal said: “But in the meantime, she is gone. She’s been thrown out. She’s been sent to Bangladesh!”

Sharma replied: “[But] we can’t call her back...if she’s already not in the country...”

The advocate said that Ali was not certain whether his mother was still in the country or had been deported to Bangladesh, according to Live Law. He also asked how the police could have flouted the 2019 order.

“At least ask them [police] in the meantime to tell us where she is, the son does not know...if she’s in Bangladesh, that’s another matter,” Sibal said.

Scroll had earlier reported that a former teacher from Morigaon district, Khairul Islam, whose citizenship case was still being heard in the Supreme Court, had been picked up from the Matia detention centre and forced out along the Bangladesh border near Assam’s South Salmara district in the early hours of May 27.

In a video recorded by journalist Mostafuzur Tara from Bangladesh’s Rangpur division, Islam alleged that he was among 14 persons “pushed” into Bangladesh by India’s Border Security Force on the morning of May 27.

Islam and the others were reported to be in no man’s land, between the two countries.

Three days later, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma admitted to “pushing” back persons who were declared foreigners by the tribunals to Bangladesh. Stating that the process to push back foreigners would continue, Sarma claimed that the action was being taken as per the directives issued by the Supreme Court in February.

On February 4, the Supreme Court directed the state government to begin the process of deporting foreign nationals being held in the state’s detention centres immediately.

The court had said that foreign nationals can be deported even without an address. “You cannot continue to detain them indefinitely...Once they are held to be foreigners, they should be deported immediately,” it added.

Foreigners Tribunals in Assam are quasi-judicial bodies that adjudicate on matters of citizenship. Only those living in the state before March 25, 1971, or their descendants, qualify as Indian citizens in Assam, as per the Assam Accord.

However, the tribunals have been accused of arbitrariness and bias, and of declaring persons foreigners on the basis of minor spelling mistakes, a lack of documents or lapses in memory.