Odisha releases 403 Bengali migrant workers detained on B'deshi suspicion

Kolkata/Berhampore: Odisha has released 403 out of 447 Bengali-speaking migrants it had detained, suspecting them of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants , over the past three days. Most of the Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been released, said Trinamool MP Samirul Islam, who chairs the state migrant workers' welfare board.

The migrant workers, most of them from Birbhum and Murshidabad and some from South 24 Parganas, had been mostly picked up by the Jharsuguda police, according to Islam.

Samiul Sk from Shahjadpur village in Murshidabad was among those detained. His father, Sariful Seikh, said his son had been detained at Pahala police station in Odisha's Khurda district along with five other teenaged migrant workers who worked as masons.

Police had taken away their phones, Seikh said, adding, "Police in Odisha were not ready to accept any document such as Aadhaar. Finally, we approached Hariharpara police station, after which they were freed."

Mursalim Seikh of Benedaha in Beldanga, whose 17-year-old son Sagar Ali was detained in Odisha, said, "Is there any law against a labourer going to work in another state? Sagar went there with others his age."

The Calcutta High Court was informed on Friday that after it asked the Odisha govt to furnish details of two people it had detained, they were released. Raghunath Chakraborty, the lawyer representing these two migrant workers, told the HC: "We have received information from the person concerned that detainees have been released from Odisha after the matter was filed in the HC. They have come back to their homes. But it needs to be determined whether such detentions are legal."

Krishnanagar MP Mahua Moitra wrote on X that all detainees from Nadia, barring two, were released. "Robiul Sheikh and Mohir Munshi with verified documents are still being detained illegally by Odisha only because of a Bangladeshi phone number on their phones! Is that even a crime?" she wrote.

Meanwhile, Islam took a dig at BJP Bengal co-in-charge Amit Malviya for claiming that 335 of those detained had fake documents. "Now it's your responsibility to submit proof about all these individuals you were claiming to be Bangladeshis," he said.