Detention of Bangla-speaking migrants: Bhasha stir begins, Mamata to march in Birbhum today
The march will commence from the Tourist Lodge intersection and conclude at the Jambooni bus stand, followed by the chief minister's speech.
On Sunday, she reiterated her charge against the BJP of unleashing a regime of 'linguistic terror' on Bengalis in the country, claiming that members of a migrant family were beaten up by the police in Delhi.
Banerjee shared a video on X of a child and his mother purportedly belonging to a migrant family from West Bengal's Malda district, who were allegedly beaten up by the police in the national capital.
'Atrocious!! Terrible!! See how Delhi police brutally beat up a kid and his mother, members of a migrant family from Malda's Chanchal. See how even a child is not spared from the cruelty of violence in the regime of linguistic terror unleashed by BJP in the country against the Bengalis! Where are they taking our country now?' she wrote.
Banerjee had last Monday accused the BJP of unleashing 'linguistic terrorism' on Bengalis, asserting that the fight for identity and language will continue until BJP is defeated.
Speaking at the TMC's annual Martyrs' Day rally, she had announced that from Sunday, a movement would start in West Bengal to protest against 'attacks on Bengalis, the Bengali language and linguistic terrorism'.
Marches were organised in Bhawanipore and Sealdah in Kolkata and elsewhere in Chuchura, Bankura, Birbhum, Cooch Behar by TMC workers, who held placards highlighting 'harassment and persecution' of the migrant workers in Assam, Odisha, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan and Maharashtra by the police in those states.
TMC MLA Asim Majumdar led the rally at Khadina More in Chuchura, where he asserted that the 'double-engine governments' in those BJP-ruled states were 'deliberately harassing' Bengali-speaking migrants despite producing documents like Aadhaar cards and Voter ID cards.
'As stated by our Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, we have started this 'language movement' from today, which will hit the streets every weekend till the middle of August in the run-up to Independence Day. We will not take the persecution of Bengalis lightly,' he asserted.
TMC leader and North Bengal Development Minister Udayan Guha led another march at Dinhata in Cooch Behar, vowing to resist the 'attempt by the BJP to strike off names of legitimate voters from voter lists, and send Indian citizens from Bengal to detention camps for electoral gains'.
Thousands of TMC activists took part in the rallies in Sealdah and Bhawanipore with placards displaying Bengali alphabets and slogans against 'torture on Bengali-speaking people by the BJP outside West Bengal'. The processions disrupted vehicular movement in parts of central and south Kolkata.
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The exodus of migrants in hordes from Gurugram to their home towns has caused a severe crunch of domestic workers and garbage collectors, leading to a sanitation crisis, affecting hundreds of households relying on their services. Nasira's employers in a housing society are worried. 'Madam ko kaafi chinta hai itna kachra kaun saaf karega agar hum log chale gaye. Darr se sab log ja rahe hain, toh nayi maid milna bhi mushkil hain (Madam is quite worried about who will clean up so much garbage if we leave. Everyone is leaving out of fear, so it is difficult to find a new domestic help),' she says. Around her is the cacophony of despair: the wailing of infants, barking of dogs, and the bickering of families. For an escape from this world, seemingly in a perpetual state of chaos, a person must simply walk a few hundred metres to the quickly flooding main road, where a luxury car tries to zip through a traffic snarl. The Gurugram police are yet to disclose the number of people they have detained during the drive. However, Assistant Sub-Inspector Sandeep Kumar, Gurugram Police spokesperson, says detentions were carried out based on 'intelligence' and the detainees were let off only after their credentials as Indian citizens were established through background checks by the office of the District Magistrate. 'So far, 10 Bangladeshi nationals staying here illegally have been identified and will be deported,' he says. Fleeing in fear Pointing at two tarpaulin-covered trucks parked on the roadside near the shanties, Mohammad Ismail, 66, says the vehicles carried the belongings of over 200 families that left the city by buses and trains. 'People are leaving even if they have valid documents. No one wants to get into trouble. Even those working in the city for decades have hurriedly left,' he says, adding that his friend who ran a meat kiosk was taken away by the police a week ago. 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'Verification drives are routine,' he notes. 'But this time, the police are taking people straight to detention centres without even asking for documents.' This is why the fear is heightened, says a man sitting beside him. Nasira's uncle Nasimuddin says his four-day experience at the detention centre in Badshahpur was 'not so bad'. He says the police picked him up on July 19 while he was on his way home from work with a friend. During his detention, he was given food and tea, and did not face any physical abuse. Nasimuddin had moved to Gurugram four months ago to work in the housekeeping department of a shopping mall. He is a trained mason, but ill health now prevents him from carrying out this work. His wife is a domestic help in an apartment complex. To supplement their income, he also cleans toilets in some houses in the evening. Though senior police officers remain tight-lipped, sources say special teams were constituted in each police station to carry out the raids, especially at jhuggi-jhopri clusters inhabited by Bengali-speaking migrants. 'The raids are being carried out for more than a month now, though the detention centres were set up only a week ago. The raids are mostly conducted late at night or in the early hours of the morning,' says a constable, who is posted at the Pataudi police station and has been part of these special teams. Residents don't resist A couple residing at Regency Park-I, Sector 43, says their domestic help and car washer suddenly left to return to their native place in Assam. Despite undergoing the police verification process two years ago when they were hired, the recent crackdown had instilled fear in them. The police verification process is a standard procedure that confirms whether the address mentioned on an individual's Aadhaar card matches their actual place of residence. According to the couple, many housing societies have made this verification compulsory for domestic workers and other staff. The couple claims that their staff informed them about a late-night police raid on their colony in Chakkarpur village, during which some migrant workers were taken away. Their landlord had also asked tenants from Assam and West Bengal to vacate, prompting their decision to leave. Abhey Poonia, senior vice president of the Gurgaon Citizens' Council, an umbrella organisation of over 80 resident welfare associations (RWAs), says many domestic workers, car washers, and garbage collectors left their jobs over the past few days. 'About 80% of domestic workers and garbage collectors have disappeared,' he says. 'Door-to-door garbage collection has stopped. Now, municipal vehicles collect trash from outside our societies every three to four days.' Despite the inconvenience, Poonia states that the council backs the initiative. Sushant Lok-II RWA president Pawan Yadav echoes his views. 'Residents are finding it difficult to manage household chores and dispose of waste, but we support the verification drive. It should have been done earlier,' he says. A contractor, who was hired by the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram for door-to-door waste collection, segregation, and composting, says half of his employees have fled the city after the verification drive was launched. 'Waste collection came to a halt for four to five days, but we supported our men while they were held in detention centres and helped them get the verification done. We have asked those who have left to send their documents for verification to us. We hope that they will return soon,' the contractor says, adding that more than three-fourths of people engaged in garbage collection belong to Assam and West Bengal; the rest are from Bihar. 'There were some instances initially where police personnel in plain clothes beat up migrants in the name of verification. They extorted money from them. Employers left them to fend for themselves. It created a sense of fear, causing the exodus,' says the contractor, who did not wish to be identified. The police, however, vehemently deny the allegations of physical abuse and extortion. Community voices Ainul Sekh, in his 50s, who stays in a single room with his wife and two adult children in Sector 15, says he works as a security guard at a college in Sector 14, but is scared to commute to work. His family had moved to Gurugram in 2012 in search of work and better education for the children. He says purported videos of migrant workers being beaten up by the police have filled him with fear. 'I don't know whether those videos are fake or real, but I'm scared. My son works as a delivery boy. For the past two days, we have told him not to leave the house.' Sekh says they have all the required documents to prove that they are citizens of India. 'There are no jobs in West Bengal. Can't we work in our own country?' says Beauty Bibi, his wife, who works as a domestic help. Barsha, in his 40s, who runs a meat shop in Chakkarpur's machhi mandi (fish market), says police teams had come to the area to verify documents, but did not pick up anyone. 'Most Bengalis in Gali No. 5 are Hindus, so they have nothing to fear,' he says. Though the drive has reportedly de-escalated over the past few days and some holding centres are empty, it has drawn criticism on a few counts. Congress MLA from Nuh and former Haryana Transport Minister Aftab Ahmed says the 'inhuman treatment' meted out to Bengali-speaking people from West Bengal and Assam, mostly Muslims, is 'shameful'. He alleges that people employed in Gurugram for years and engaged in menial jobs were beaten up and packed into vehicles like animals in order to be taken away to detention centres. He claims that in a few cases, including one in Faridabad's Ankhir, the police demanded money from some migrant workers in exchange for their release. 'Earlier, Muslims were not allowed to offer Friday prayers in Gurugram. Now, the local police are doing what Raj Thackeray's party (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena) is doing to Hindi-speaking Indian citizens in Maharashtra,' he says. Ahmed clarifies that he is not against the verification drive, but says an environment of fear is being created by the Haryana government to force migrants out of the State. The State's Trade Union Council in a memorandum to the Deputy Commissioner of Gurugram said picking up Bengal-speaking people in the name of verification, 'collecting money from them, keeping their documents in custody, and not giving any kind of information to their family members' are actions that constitute a blatant violation of human rights. In a press release, it stated, 'We have also come to know that most of the people who come in plain clothes to pick up people arrive in vehicles without registered number plates. Are they police personnel or someone else? This is a matter of serious concern. As a result, a large number of poor labourers are migrating out of fear.' Idrish Ali, in his late 50s, a tea stall owner in Carterpuri village, says, 'Hundreds of families are waiting for their monthly wages to be cleared by the first week of August before they too leave. The city might see another wave of exodus soon.' Ali, who came to Gurugram from West Bengal in 1998 in search of a better life, says, 'My brother has just reached Bengal.' For him, Gurugram is home. Edited by Sunalini Mathew
