Adhir Ranjan urges PM to act on attacks on Bengali‑speaking citizens

Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday sought the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, drawing attention to the rising wave of attacks on Bengali-speaking citizens, particularly in BJP-ruled states. Chowdhury painted a picture of growing communal unease, warning that the targeting of individuals for their mother tongue could fan the flames of discord and even violence.

“Their sole ‘crime’ is speaking Bengali, a language often misconstrued by local administrations as a marker of foreign origin, leading to unjust treatment as alleged infiltrators,” Chowdhury wrote in a letter to the prime minister.

Highlighting the sensitive dynamics of border districts in West Bengal, which house significant Muslim populations and lie adjacent to Bangladesh, he stressed that these incidents elsewhere were stoking anxiety and tension at home.

Chowdhury urged the prime minister to “sensitise all state governments” against acts of discrimination, harassment, and persecution of migrant laborers hailing from other parts of India.

The appeal comes against a backdrop of distressing incidents, including the death of 30-year-old migrant worker Jewel Rana from Jangipur in Murshidabad, who was killed in Sambalpur, Odisha, following a trivial altercation over a ‘bidi’. In Mumbai, two migrant workers faced arrest on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

The West Bengal Migrants Welfare Board, painting a stark portrait of the plight, recorded 1,143 complaints of harassment over the past ten months, primarily emanating from BJP-governed states, underscoring the urgent need for protective measures.

Chowdhury’s entreaty to the prime minister seeks not only immediate intervention but a broader moral compass to ensure that linguistic identity is never conflated with illegitimacy, and that all citizens, irrespective of origin, may live free from fear and prejudice.

With PTI inputs