Family faces deportation

Sep 19 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

Jannatul Chowdhury, centre, pictured with her children Nazifa 13, left, and Ishtaque 17 _240

TWO teenagers who fled to Liverpool after escaping from being kidnapped in Bangladesh are to be deported back to their home country, unless lawyers can save them.

Childwall Sports College pupil Ishtiaque Chowdhury, 17, and his sister, Nazifa, 13, were bundled into an immigration van and taken to Yarls Wood detention centre early yesterday. They were arrested with their mother, Jannatul Chowdhury, 41, who was last night said to be struggling to cope with the prospect of being deported on Saturday.

It is the second time this year Mrs Chowdhury and her children, whose father died in 2005 in Liverpool following an illness, have been locked up.

In April, they spent six days at Yarls Wood before being finally released. Their incarceration sparked outrage in the community where the family have settled in Kirkdale’s Daisy Street.

Pupils at Childwall where Istaque is studying for his A-levels, also sent letters and a petition along with lawyers’ pleas for mercy to the Home Office.

Last night, lawyers were again hoping to make emergency representations to the Government on the grounds that to send the children back to Bangladesh would be against their human rights.

Mrs Chowdhury is waiting for an operation to remove troublesome gallstones.

The family came to Liverpool four years ago after both children were kidnapped in Bangladesh by political enemies of their father.

lizawilliams@dailypost.co.uk