‘SIR anxiety’ drives man to death in Saudi as wife waits in hearing queue
Times of India | 28 January 2026
Behrampore/Malda/Kolkata: Clutching documents in one hand and phone in the other, Roksana Biwi stood frozen for a minute before breaking down. Since Tuesday morning, the woman had been standing in the queue at an SIR hearing centre in Murshidabad's Kandi, holding the documents of her 32-year-old husband Ibrahim Sheikh who worked in Saudi Arabia. Roksana had come to appear in the hearing on behalf of Ibrahim. This was when she received a phone call informing her that Ibrahim had died by suicide at his workplace.
Ibrahim's family blamed anxiety over SIR in Bengal for his death.
Ibrahim's relative Rahmat Sheikh alleged: "He worked tirelessly just to give a better life to his family. A single notice took away all his peace. He went on repeating, ‘There is a mistake in the papers'. He kept on asking us whenever he called: ‘Will they not let me return to the country?' The worry took away his life."
Kandi TMC MLA Apurba Sarkar and police officials visited Ibrahim's home. According to officers, the hearing notice was generated because of a discrepancy in 2025 and 2002 lists, regarding Ibrahim's father.
In a separate incident in Malda, 55-year-old daily wage earner Sk Sariful of Nurpur died on Tuesday morning, the day his sons were scheduled to appear for a hearing. According to the family, Sariful's sons Ariful and Dildar had received notices because their EPICs listed their father's name as "Sariful" instead of "Sk Sariful".
Family members said Sariful feared deportation, visited multiple offices seeking help, stopped speaking and had not been eating for several days. Local panchayat member Sk Sadikul said, "In our booth of Tiorpara, which is a Muslim dominated area, almost 90% have received notices over discrepancies or linking failures."
In North 24 Parganas' Hingalganj, 71-year-old Ajagar Biswas died on Monday night after hearing notices were issued to three members of his family. No notice was issued in his name. His son Abu Bakkar Biswas said his father was under severe stress ahead of the scheduled hearing. "We tried to reassure him, but he kept worrying about what would happen to us and our mother," he said.