A week on, all in Gurgaon detention centres freed, except 10 ‘illegals'

Time of India

2 days ago

Gurgaon: A week after a drive to identify Bangladeshis and Rohingya living illegally in the city began, leading to around 250 people being rounded up at four holding centres, everyone – barring 10 foreigners who will be deported – has been freed.
After the verification exercise was complete, the last batches of detainees were sent home on Friday, though the four community centres remain notified as holding centres.
The drive generated panic among migrant families from West Bengal and Assam, many of whom have left the city, scared of detentions and questions. The police verification drive had initially rounded up around 500 people. Around 50% of them were sent to the holding centres for checks that involved background verification from police in home districts.
TOI had reported in its July 25 edition that during these checks, 10 of those detained had been found to be Bangladeshi citizens who had made Indian IDs like Aadhaar and voter cards made.
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At the Sector 40 community centre, one of the four detention facilities, only one remained on Friday – one of the 10 men identified as a Bangladeshi national. "He was detained from Sector 53 after arriving from Delhi. He couldn't provide proof of Indian citizenship.
So, we have initiated his deportation process," said a police officer familiar with the case.
At the community centre in Badshapur, which previously held over 100 people, all detainees were freed after they provided proof of their Indian citizenship and the documents were vetted. Some Bangladeshi nationals are still housed here.
Sandeep Kumar, spokesperson for the police, said, "There is zero detention at all four centres now.
All migrants were released after verification of their documents."
But even as the drive has managed to identify illegals, it has left a considerable section of the Bengali-speaking migrant population shaken. Many of those released described their time in detention as "the most traumatic days" of their lives. They also expressed disappointment over the lack of support from political parties in their home states — particularly Trinamool Congress — despite public statements of outrage from the party and West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
They said no political leader or any organisation from their home states had visited them despite the show of support on social media.
At an event in Kolkata on Thursday, Mamata accused the BJP-led Centre of targeting the Bengali language and its people. "A kind of linguistic terrorism has been declared against the Bengali language, the fifth most spoken in the world. Around 30 crore people speak Bengali, but Bengali speakers are being sent to jail.
I cannot accept this, and I believe you cannot either. There should be zero tolerance for people being detained just for speaking Bengali.
We must protect this land," she said.
Those from Assam, too, rued the lack of home support. Tara Miya, a labour contractor from Assam staying in Baliawas, said most of his workforce had gone back home. "Sixteen of my men were detained for about six days, first in a police station and then at the detention centre in Sector 40.
No politician from Assam offered any help. The cops released all my men after verification. Of the 400 migrants who stay in Baliawas, only about 100 are here.
The rest have left for home," he added.
Local labour organisations, however, rallied behind the detainees, condemning what they described as harassment. The state secretary of the Democratic Women's Committee, Usha Saroha, along with other labour union functionaries, pointed out that many affected workers have been long-term residents of the city, working in industries, at construction sites, and as domestic staff.
CITU general secretary Jaibhagwan said, "Bengali-speaking minorities are being specifically targeted.
Many citizens are being mistreated under the pretext of verification."
A senior police officer said the deportation process for the 10 Bangladeshi nationals is under way and the identification drive is not over. "The drive against illegals will continue in the coming days and these four designated holding centres will also operate for now. In case we find any suspect, they will be housed here," the officer added.