Detained as Bangladeshis, Bengal workers now ‘scared’ to leave state
“We spent a night at a detention camp. Somehow, through the intervention of our state’s police, we were released. I will never go to work in Assam again. I have worked in different parts of India but never faced such a situation.”Sahbaz Hashmi (35), from Kuligram in Murshidabad, is among a large number of migrant workers from Bengal who have returned home after being detained by authorities in Gujarat and Assam, and allegedly harassed by local residents in Odisha, amid a crackdown on illegal Bangladeshis.
So much so, that top officials in the West Bengal government and police have now reached out to their counterparts for help. “There have been many such cases where migrant workers of Bengal are being targeted in different states. Officers in the police and administrative levels of the sta...