Latest news with #Bengali-speakers
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
In India, immigration raids detain thousands and create a climate of fear
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox Police officers escort men they believe to be undocumented Bangladeshi nationals after they were detained during raids in Ahmedabad, India, on April 26. DHAKA, Bangladesh - Thousands of people have been caught up in a widening crackdown on migrants that the Indian government has justified as a national security imperative. Rights groups say the crackdown, which intensified after a terrorist attack in Kashmir in April, has become an increasingly arbitrary campaign of fear against Muslims in India, especially those whose language might mark them as outsiders. Most of those detained in the raids live hundreds of miles from Pakistan, which India has blamed for the attack. Indian Bengali-speakers, most of them Muslims, have been rounded up, detained or expelled to Bangladesh. Many are from West Bengal, an eastern Indian state where Bengali is the main language; for decades, young people from the state have migrated to big Indian cities elsewhere for work. Several million Bangladeshis are thought to live in India, entering - legally or illegally - through the porous border that divides the two nations. Indian states have carried out raids on neighbourhoods with dense concentrations of Bengali speakers, saying they had evidence of immigrants there illegally. Bengali, an official language of both India and Bangladesh, is spoken by tens of millions of people on both sides of the border. Since mid-July, authorities in Gurugram, a satellite city of the capital, New Delhi, have conducted what they call a verification drive, intended to identify immigrants lacking legal status. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore BTO income ceiling, age floor for singles being reviewed: Chee Hong Tat World Netanyahu says Israel's new Gaza offensive will start soon Singapore 'It's so close': Crowds turn up for Red Lions, mobile column at National Day heartland celebrations Business Nvidia, AMD agree to pay 15% of China chip sale revenues to US: Sources Business Singapore can deliver and thrive in a fragmented global economy: Morgan Stanley analysts Singapore Man's claim amid divorce that his mother is true owner of 3 properties cuts no ice with judge Opinion Anwar's government: Full house but plenty of empty offices Singapore askST Jobs: How to deal with the dread of returning to work after a holiday? Police in Gurugram have detained and then released hundreds of people with documents showing they lived legally in India, according to local media reports. Hundreds of mostly poor Bengali speakers, the reports said, preemptively fled the city after the drive began, worried they would be picked up by police at any moment. Between 200 and 250 people have been detained in the verification drive and 10 were identified as illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, said Mr Sandeep Kumar, a public relations officer for the Gurugram police department. He said claims of people fleeing the city were 'rumors'. Mr Supantha Sinha, a lawyer working on detention cases in the city of Gurugram, said the number was closer to 1,000. In interviews with a dozen people across four Indian states, in neighbourhoods that have been raided by police, Muslim and Hindu Bengali speakers said they had become scared of being caught in the government's crackdown. NYTIMES
Time of India
02-08-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Abhishek sends team to aid Bengali workers detained in Maha
1 2 Kolkata: With chief minister Mamata Banerjee launching a tirade against the "linguistic terror" unleashed on Bengali-speakers in BJP-governed states, Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday sent a four-member team to Maharashtra to assist and ensure the return of migrant workers detained there at the earliest. Among those detained is one Babai Sardar, a resident of Bishnupur, a part of Abhishek's Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency. After Abhishek instructed Bishnupur MLA and state minister Dilip Mondal to send a team, four functionaries of the local TMC leadership left for Mumbai on Saturday evening. Abhishek also told Mondal to ensure that the team was "sufficiently equipped and supported" so that they can help the release of the detained workers. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata The team of Arup Kumar Das, Sachi Naskar, Rajib Gazi and Palash Karmakar has been told to reach the alleged "detention spot" directly, said Trinamool seniors. Just prior to their departure at Kolkata airport, they assured all kinds of assistance to migrant workers facing harassment in Maharashtra. According to Sardar's family, the 26-year-old labourer had left for Mumbai for work nearly two years ago. His family members have not been able to contact or communicate with him for around a week now. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Global Indices Are on the Move — Time to Trade! IC Markets Learn More Undo Sardar is carrying his voter ID and Aadhaar card on him, they said. For the past several weeks, there have been multiple instances of mistreatment of Bengali migrant workers in various states. Reports have surfaced of them being beaten, attacked, robbed, having their earnings taken away, and even having their identity documents seized across states like Delhi, Odisha, Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra, along with others. In protest, Mamata has taken to the streets to lead a statewide 'Bhasha Andolan'. The CM is set to lead a rally again at Jhargram next week after leading a similar one at Bolpur in Birbhum last week. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Friendship Day wishes , messages and quotes !
Time of India
02-08-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Abhishek sends team to Maha to rescue detained Bengali workers
Kolkata: With chief minister Mamata Banerjee launching a tirade against the "linguistic terror" unleashed on Bengali-speakers in BJP-governed states, Trinamool national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee on Saturday sent a four-member team to Maharashtra to assist and ensure the return of migrant workers detained there at the earliest. Among those detained is one Babai Sardar, a resident of Bishnupur, a part of Abhishek's Diamond Harbour Lok Sabha constituency. After Abhishek instructed Bishnupur MLA and state minister Dilip Mondal to send a team, four functionaries of the local TMC leadership left for Mumbai on Saturday evening. Abhishek also told Mondal to ensure that the team was "sufficiently equipped and supported" so that they can help the release of the detained workers. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata The team of Arup Kumar Das, Sachi Naskar, Rajib Gazi and Palash Karmakar has been told to reach the alleged "detention spot" directly, said Trinamool seniors. Just prior to their departure at Kolkata airport, they assured all kinds of assistance to migrant workers facing harassment in Maharashtra. According to Sardar's family, the 26-year-old labourer had left for Mumbai for work nearly two years ago. His family members have not been able to contact or communicate with him for around a week now. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 5 Books Warren Buffett Wants You To Read in 2025 Blinkist: Warren Buffett's Reading List Undo Sardar is carrying his voter ID and Aadhaar card on him, they said. For the past several weeks, there have been multiple instances of mistreatment of Bengali migrant workers in various states. Reports have surfaced of them being beaten, attacked, robbed, having their earnings taken away, and even having their identity documents seized across states like Delhi, Odisha, Rajasthan, Haryana and Maharashtra, along with others. In protest, Mamata has taken to the streets to lead a statewide 'Bhasha Andolan'. The CM is set to lead a rally again at Jhargram next week after leading a similar one at Bolpur in Birbhum last week. Get the latest lifestyle updates on Times of India, along with Friendship Day wishes , messages and quotes !
Hans India
31-07-2025
- Politics
- Hans India
Bengal woman sticks to guns against Delhi cops
New Delhi: Sajanu Parveen, a resident of Malda's Chanchal who has claimed that Delhi police personnel in plainclothes had picked her up from a Delhi slum and assaulted her, doubled down on her allegations on Wednesday. Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had flagged the alleged assault – in which she said even Parveen's child was not spared –as an example of how Bengali-speakers were being tortured in BJP-ruled states in the name of nabbing illegal immigrants. Delhi's deputy commissioner of police (east) Abhishek Dhania had denied the allegations, dismissing them as politically motivated. Mamata had stuck to her guns, saying the truth will eventually come out. 'They [Delhi cops] are not showing the place where I was taken to and assaulted,' Parveen said on Wednesday addressing a news conference at the Trinamool Bhawan in Kolkata, flanked by state minister and city mayor Firhad Hakim and party spokesperson Kunal Ghosh. 'I asked them where they had bought me and my son. I was told it was some hospital, Mangalam,' Parveen said. 'The first day, four people came in plainclothes and claimed they were from the CID. They asked for my Aadhaar card. When I told them we are from Malda, they said you are from West Bengal, everybody in West Bengal is Bangladeshi,' Parveen said. 'I told them if everyone in West Bengal is Bangladeshi, is the chief minister Mamata Banerjee also Bangladeshi?' Parveen, a mother of three, said she was picked up the next day. 'There is no CCTV footage from where they picked me up, where they took me and the Rs. 25,000 that we were forced to pay them. They made us sign several papers. We don't know what they were about,' Parveen alleged. 'One of them hit my son so hard, there was a cut above his ear and started bleeding. They said if we said Jai Shree Ram we could go.'
Time of India
27-07-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Bengalis who got NRC notices at forefront of TMC protests
Jalpaiguri: Uttam Kumar Brajabashi of Dinhata and Nishikanta Das of Mathabhanga — who received NRC notices from the foreigners tribunal in Assam — on Sunday were at the forefront of protests by Trinamool Congress against "targeting" of Bengali migrants by BJP, in Cooch Behar's Jorai on the Assam-Bengal border. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Arati Ghosh from Baxirhat, who left her in-laws' house in Assam's Barpeta in 2019 after her NRC application was rejected, was also present. Dinhata MLA Udayan Guha, former Natabati MLA and Cooch Behar municipality chairman Rabindranath Ghosh, and former Cooch Behar MP Partha Pratim Roy took part in the demonstration along with Cooch Behar Trinamool resident Avijit De Bhowmik. After the rally, Trinamool supporters held a meeting where netas expanded on how BJP was harassing Bengali-speakers across the country. Assam govt had alleged Brajabashi was an illegal immigrant who entered India between 1966 and 1971. Brajabashi claimed he was born in 1975 and never went to Assam. Septuagenarian Nishikanta Das was also served a notice by the foreign tribunal. Although he appeared produced an Aadhaar card, EPIC and ration card at the hearing, the tribunal rejected these. Ghosh left Assam before getting a notice, saying she did not have the documents Assam govt was looking for.
