West Bengal: Bengalis at receiving end of crackdown on ‘Bangladeshis’

A teenaged college-going girl in Gurugram asks YouTuber Ajit Anjum on camera, “You are doing your job; you have checked our documents, recorded our statements and will go away. But who will take responsibility if something happens to us after you leave?”

The Muslim girl from West Bengal says in English, “We are not Bangladeshis; we are Indians; but the terror of Gurugram police is such that my father has decided to go back to our village.” Reverting back to Hindi, she asks what will happen to her education, and that of her brother who is studying in Class 7.

She touches a raw nerve. Who is answerable for the police action? Would it not have been better for the police to record the statements of these people, take copies of the documents and then, in coordination with West Bengal Police, verify their citizenship status? Instead, the police seem to have taken the easy way out by rounding up people, assaulting them in the hope that some would confess, before releasing most of them.

Nobody in the slum is going out, afraid that they might be detained and not have an opportunity to inform others in the family. Women working as house help in housing societies have stopped doing so. The men, working as drivers, carpenters, plumbers, security guards and doing odd jobs, are lounging around with their identity proofs, unsure when the police will land and pick up whoever they find.

“Gaari se ‘naam kar’, seedhe maarta hai (they begin hitting us right after getting off their vehicles),” complains a young man in accented Hindi laced with the half-Bengali word ‘naam-kar’ (getting off a vehicle, in this case). “The policemen do not listen to us. They first confiscate our mobile phones and then start beating us,” elaborates another man.

Bengali-speaking people were summarily told to leave the area. The men were taken away and assaulted. Terrified and humiliated, hundreds of families have already left Gurugram — afraid that they will be forcibly deported to Bangladesh if they stay back.

Gurugram police claim they have released most of the people from the ‘holding centres’. They deny charges that the people were let off after extorting money. At least one woman, Surtan, claimed on camera to Anjum that she paid Rs 20,000 to secure the release of her teenaged son Shariful. Most of these families living on rent in Badshahpur jhuggi in Sector 66 — paying Rs 3,000 per month for an 8 foot by 8 foot room with a tin-roof — are said to have left for West Bengal.

Not just Muslims, Hindus too have been affected. Sujit Roy and Deepa Roy had packed their belongings and were ready to leave when the YouTuber met them. After seeing their Aadhaar card, EPIC card, PAN card (Anjum did not ask if they actually needed the PAN card or filed income tax returns) and ration card, he asks them why they were leaving if they had all the documents. The police, the couple said, did not want to look at documents. It was enough that they spoke Bengali and were from West Bengal. Most Hindus, however, were let off in Badshahpur, complains a young Muslim woman.

A report in The Hindu on Friday stated, “Nearly 80 per cent of the domestic staff and waste collectors have left in the past few days. Garbage collection has been hit. The municipal vehicle comes once every three to four days now,” said Abhey Poonia, senior vice-president of the Gurgaon Citizens’ Council, an umbrella body of over 80 RWAs (resident welfare associations).”

Residents of Sushant Lok-II and Sector 43 shared similar accounts. A couple living in Regency Park-I said both their help and car cleaner, verified by police, fled to Assam after night raids in their building. “The ongoing drive scared them. Their landlord also told tenants from Bengal and Assam to vacate,” they said.

Gurugram is not the only place where Bengali-speaking migrants are being rounded up by police. Following a directive issued in June by the ministry of home affairs (MHA), the crackdown has been reported from across the country, from Tamil Nadu to Assam, from Gujarat and Maharashtra to Rajasthan and Odisha.

West Bengal Police has circulated a mobile phone number on which migrant workers from the state can send WhatsApp messages in case they face harassment in other states and are accused of being Bangladeshi infiltrators. It is not clear yet if the number (91477 27666) circulated on social media has reached migrant workers and if they know that they can't call anyone but only send a WA message to the number. 

Confirming reports that Hindus from West Bengal too are facing harassment for speaking Bengali, Samirul Islam, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP posted the following message on X: “Recently, West Bengal Migrant Workers' Welfare Board received information about police harassment of at least six members of the Matua community from North 24 Parganas, currently residing in Pune, Maharashtra.

“We have already reached out to the affected family, who confirmed that the police in BJP-ruled Maharashtra have detained Arush Adhikary and at least five others including minors, on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals. Shockingly, BJP MP and Union Minister of State Santanu Thakur himself belongs to the Matua community.

"We have also learned that the Pune police are reportedly refusing to recognise identity cards issued by the All-India Matua Mahasangha (AIMM), besides EPIC and Aadhaar cards. People from the Matua community confirmed that those identity cards were provided by BJP MP Santanu Thakur. Are these Matua brothers and sisters Rohingyas?”