The arrest of Assamese construction worker Ameerul Islam on June 16 by the Kerala Police for the brutal rape-murder of a 29-year-old Dalit law student near Perumbavoor in Ernakulam district on April 28 has sown fear of possible backlash against them from the native people among lakhs of migrant workers in the State.
Reports from several towns in Ernakulam district indicate that many migrant workers, especially those from Assam, have already left their rented homes and anxiety is growing among the others who still hope to continue working in Kerala. The situation has prompted the police to arrange special security for buildings where migrants from Assam are living in Perumbavoor.
The accused was one of the 20 or so occupants of one of the rooms in a three-floor building at Vaidyasalappady in Perumbavoor but all the Assamese have left the room after his arrest, according to local people. “Only some men from UP are staying there now. Even some of them are not very keen about continuing there,” said a shop-keeper in a neighbouring building.
Perumbavoor perhaps has the maximum concentration of migrant workers in the entire State and their number could be placed anywhere between two lakhs and three lakhs, says a top official in the Kochi police, admitting that the authorities do not have even an approximate estimate of the number of migrants in the district.
Almost all kinds of manual jobs in the main towns of Kerala are being done by migrant workers. “If this fear being felt by them about a possible backlash from the natives grows into panic and if they choose to leave, it may lead to a crisis in many sectors including construction, quarrying, etc,” says George Joseph, a building contractor in Muvattupuzha.
“All of us know that every migrant worker is not an Ameerul. May be it is for that reason that no hatred for migrants has become visible even now in this area. That has another reason also. A large number of people still seem to harbor doubts about the claims of the police,” said a youth organization leader in Perumbavoor.
Jameel Muhammad, a construction worker from West Bengal who has been working in Perumbavoor for the past seven years, said that the fear being felt by them is not unfounded. “We have a feeling that there is a change in the natives’ approach to us. Personally, I am trying to avoid situations where I have to interact with the native men,” he says.
However, Jameel who can speaks good Malayalam, says that he does not want to leave Kerala under any circumstance. “I am a mason and a concrete man. I get Rs900 for masonry and Rs1,200 for concrete work a day. I am not going to get even half these wages in my home state,” he says.
Most of the migrant workers who have been working in Kerala for long do not find fault with the Malayalees “even if they feel bad about us” in the new context. “From the newspapers and from what others say, we learn that the number of crimes involving Baharwallahs (migrants) is on the rise,” Jameel adds.
According to the police, over 1,200 cases have been registered against migrant workers in the State in the past five years. “In many of these cases, the accused are either not found or have not been captured. There should be a system to keep regular check on them,” says a Sub Inspector of Police in Thrissur, a district which has a large number of migrants.
The Department of labour has for long been trying to devise a working system to get the migrant workers registered with it but the effort has not been successful so far. “It is a complex issue. They are Indian citizens. They can live and work anywhere in this country just as Keralites do,” said a former official of the labour Department.
As per rough estimates, the number of migrant workers in Kerala could come to over 25 lakhs, almost equal to the number of Keralites working in the Gulf countries. “It is only a rough estimate. We have no records on their actual number,” admitted labour Minister TP Ramakrishnan the other day.