The Calcutta High Court has sought replies from Union Home Ministry and the Odisha Government regarding reports of migrant workers from Bengal being detained and even deported to Bangladesh.
The Division Bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobrata Kumar Mitra on Friday directed the Delhi Government to clarigy whether some migrant workers from Bengal had been detained or deported to the neighbouring country.
The Court was hearing a Habeas Corpus petition under Article 226 filed by the relatives of the affected persons ‘wherein it was claimed that Sweety Bibi, Kurban Sheikh, their minor son, Sunali Khatun, Danish and his minor grandson have been illegally detained in New Delhi and subsequently deported to Bangladesh’ R Chakrabarty the petitioners’ advocate said.
The Court also directed Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant to contact the Delhi Government to get an update regarding the matter.
The affected people haining from the Birbhum district were detained from Katju Marg in Delhi the petitioiners’ lawyer submitted. The Court directed Centre’s lawyer Dhiraj Trivedi to submit a report on the next date of hearing. The Friday’s development comes a a day after the same Court on Thursday sought reports from the Odisha Government on alleged detention of migrant workers from Bengal. The next hearing on the matter will be on July 16.
The Court directed Pant to coordinate with his Odisha counterpart refarding complaints that about 400 people — mostly from Bengal — had been detained on suspicision that they were illegal Bangladesh migrants.
The development comes coincides with a war of words breaking out between TMC Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam and BJP spokesperson Amit Malavya. This, after the TMC leader alleged that the Bengali migrant workers living at Jai Hind Colony in Delhi were being ‘harassed, detained and even deported.’
Malviya however accused the TMC leadership of needlessly politicising the matter related to Jai Hind Colony which was prompted by a court order leading to the identification of 26 illegal Bangladeshi infiltrators.
In a political slugfest that ensued Islam who is also chairman of State Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board chairman Samirul hit back at Malviya calling him a ‘falsehood master’ and even challenged him to prove his claims that 335 out of 444 detained migrants in Odisha had fake documents allegedly issued by the Bengal Government.
‘If this is so then why no judicial scruitiny is being done, why they are being illegally detained and harassed just because they speak Bengali,’ Islam said.
Earlier two petitions were filed by Nasima Mondal and Rajjak Shiekh, residents of Hariharpara, in Murshidabad alleging their relatives had been falsely detained by Odisha Police from Jagatsinhpur in the last week of June.
Incidentally Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too had been attacking the BJP ruled States for victimising the migrant labourers from Bengal ‘because their only fault is that they speak the Bengali language, but the BJP people should know th at like the Punjabis who live in both side of the (India-Pakistan) border and speak the same language Bengalis too speak the same language, but these people are not ready to listen to their plea, even they are showing their Aadhar or Voter Cards they are being detained or even deported, is their fault that they speak Bengali.’
The Chief Minister also reminded that ‘in Bengal more than 1.5 crore people other States come and reside, but we treat them with respect, so why should the Bengalis be harassed in the BJP-ruled Statesm, these are the people from the same State that took a leading part in the Independence movement.’
State Chief Whip Shankar Ghosh however held Banerjee’s vote bank politics — allowing unchecked Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltration — responsible for the anomaly.