Son of Assam constable among nine detained in Gurugram on suspicion of being ‘illegal Bangladeshis'
Sannat Ali, a constable in the Assam Industrial Security Force, told Scroll that his son, 23-year-old Ashraful Islam, is a resident of Barbala village in Barpeta district. He had gone to Haryana on July 11 after completing his college exams, said Ali.
Upon reaching Gurugram on July 13, Ashraful Islam started working at a construction site in Sector 10A.
'At the same time, the police started picking up Muslim workers to nab Bangladeshis,' alleged Ali. 'Many of them were released after document verification.'
He added that his son and eight others from Barpeta were picked up by the police on Sunday morning when they were working at the construction site.
Ali said that his son had submitted his voter ID card, school certificates, Aadhaar card and PAN card, which were not accepted by the police. 'They call them illegal Bangladeshis,' Ali alleged.
He added: 'We have sent more documents like my service identity card and voter cards. Senior police officials have contacted me this morning. They are working to release him.'
An Assam Police official confirmed to Scroll that they have spoken to Ashraful Islam's family and their counterparts in Haryana.
Rakibul Islam, the worker's brother, said that Ashraful Islam had sent a WhatsApp message on Sunday morning, saying that the police had come to the site to verify the workers' documents.
'So we have sent the documents on WhatsApp and the documents were already with him as well,' Rakibul Islam said. 'That's the last communication. The WhatsApp status shows that he saw the text but his phone was soon switched off. We did not have any clue about his whereabouts till Monday.'
An assistant commissioner of police-rank in Gurugram West told Scroll that the action was taken as per the Union home ministry's guidelines requiring the persons' identity documents to be verified.
The police official did not mention the number of workers who had been detained.
'The process to verify their documents is going on,' the official said.
In May, the Union Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states and Union Territories to verify the credentials of persons suspected to be undocumented migrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar.
Earlier, 26 Bengali-speaking persons from Assam were allegedly detained in Gurugram on July 13 and July 14 on suspicion of being undocumented Bangladeshi migrants. They were released after their documents were verified.
Since the Pahalgam terror attack, Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been rounded up by the police in several states ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party and asked to prove that they are Indian citizens. In some cases, Indian workers were sent to Bangladesh.
On July 21, the All Assam Minorities Students' Union, a group representing the interest of Bengali-origin Muslims in the state, wrote to the chief ministers of Assam and Haryana alleging that residents of Lower Assam, who are mostly daily wage labourers, were being detained by Haryana Police in several areas of Gurugram under the 'false assumption and accusation that they are foreigners'.
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