New Delhi: Following the legal efforts of the Association for Protection of Civil Rights (APCR), 70-year-old Jalil Akhtar, a resident of Bagroi village in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, was granted bail after spending 87 days in detention. Police had detained him on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi national.

Jalil Akhtar was detained by Dalkhola police on the night of June 19 while he was sleeping outside his home. He was subsequently moved between the Nizam-pur detention centre and Islampur Jail, located about 35 kilometres away. He was also kept near the Bangladesh border for four to five days.

Following his detention, Akhtar’s family submitted various government documents before the court to establish his Indian citizenship. According to these documents, his name appears in the 1995 voter list as well as in the electoral rolls of 2002 and 2026. The family also stated that records in the police case diary showed that Jalil Akhtar had been voting in elections since 1982.

During the proceedings before the Islampur court, APCR’s fact-finding and legal team, including advocate Firoz Ahmed and High Court lawyer Syed Nafir-ul-Islam, demanded that the documents submitted by Akhtar’s family be formally verified by the police.

Following the magistrate’s direction, the investigating officer subsequently submitted a report to the court confirming the authenticity of Akhtar’s voter ID card, PAN card, his entry in the 1995 electoral roll, and the 2002 SIR record.

Jalil Akhtar’s bail hearing was adjourned four times. On each occasion, the police cited delays in verifying the documents.

The defence also informed the court that under Indian citizenship law, persons born before 1987 are not required to produce their parents’ birth records to establish their citizenship.

During the hearing on September 2, the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate examined the official records submitted before the court as well as the circumstances surrounding Jalil Akhtar’s detention. The court also noted that several attempts to deport him had not been completed and that the question of his citizenship was yet to be finally determined by the competent authority.

In its order, the court said that, considering the overall circumstances—particularly the accused’s age, the absence of any previous criminal record, verification of some of the government records submitted by him, the continued presence of his name on electoral rolls, the absence of any evidence that the documents were forged, the police not seeking further custodial interrogation, the lack of any reasonable apprehension that he would abscond or obstruct the investigation, and the fact that the citizenship issue had not yet been finally decided by the competent authority—keeping him in further detention would serve no useful purpose.

Accordingly, the court granted Jalil Akhtar bail. He was formally released on September 15.