Detention of Bengali migrants: Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury asks President Murmu to intervene
In a letter to the President, the former Congress MP wrote: 'It's very sad and cruel fact that Bengali-speaking daily wage labourers, who are bonafide Indian citizens, are being targeted due to their physical appearance and accent, which is being mistaken for that of Bangladeshis. This similarity is being used as a pretext to harass, humiliate, physically assault, and hold these innocent people in detention.'
Expressing concerns that 'witch-hunting of Bangladeshis' is leading to large-scale repatriation of Bengali migrant workers, Chowdhury wrote: 'I would like to reiterate that those lakhs of migrant workers who were compelled to venture into other states for their livelihoods also contribute significantly to the revenue kitty of the state government through their remittances. Now, those migrants are supposed to be rendered unemployed…'
The former state Congress chief said the President should intervene by taking appropriate measures to see that 'innocent Bengali-speaking people, who are bonafide Indian nationals working as labourers in Odisha, Maharashtra and other states are not subjected to harassment, humiliation, torture and loss of livelihood'.
A copy of the letter has also been sent to West Bengal Governor C V Ananda Bose.
In recent weeks and months, several Bengali migrant workers on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi nationals have been detained, and some of them pushed into Bangladesh from states like Odisha, Maharashtra, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh – all BJP-ruled states.
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