A Bangladeshi student of Visva-Bharati University, who has been asked to leave India for “anti-government” activities, is learned to have approached the Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Kolkata with a request for the reconsideration of the decision.
The student, Afsara Anika Meem, had shared pictures on Facebook of the anti-CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) protests that were held on the Visva-Bharati campus last December. She is a First Year student of Design at the University’s Shilpa Sadan and had not participated in the demonstrations but had merely posted pictures.
Leading Kolkata lawyers Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya and Shamim Ahmed are willing to take up her case in the Calcutta High Court but that will be possible only if the student agrees to go to court.
‘Illegal and vague’
“The order is absolutely illegal and vague. It does not disclose the particulars related to her supposed anti-government activities. The Constitution permits even a foreigner to be heard before being prosecuted. Such an opportunity was not given to her,” Mr. Ahmed told The Hindu.
The Leave India Notice, issued to Ms. Meem by the FRRO, said: “...she is found to have engaged in anti-government activities. And such activity being a breach of her visa, has thus committed visa violation. Therefore...the foreigner shall not remain in India and shall depart from India within 15 days of the receipt of the order”.
“Non-compliance will attract prosecution under Foreigners’ Act, 1946,” it added. The notice is dated February 14 but is said to have been received by Ms. Meem only on Wednesday.
Ms. Meem, 20, hails from Kustia in Bangladesh and had come to study in Visva-Bharati in late 2018 on an S-1 visa.
