Kolkata/Bhubaneswar: Their skills in masonry are recognised across the country. At any point of time, lakhs of males from the district of Murshidabad in West Bengal – all of them master masons or Raj Mistris – are busy at construction sites away from home.
Unfortunately, happenings over the last few weeks have caused them severe misery. Many have now returned home to narrate tales of ill-treatment and abuse at the hands of locals in other states.
Their fault – they are Muslims and speak Bengali. An deadly combination nowadays, when a search is on to track down illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. But then, nearly 70% of the population in Murshidabad are Muslims and most of them have nothing to do with Bangladesh.
Congress leader and former MP from Baharampur in Murshidabad Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has now written to the chief ministers of Odisha and Gujarat, urging them to ensure the safety of such migrant workers.
“While illegal Bangladeshi Immigrants must be identified and deported, care needs to be taken to ensure that these poor migrant labourers, who are Indians, do not face harassment just because they are Muslims and speak Bengali,” Chowdhury has said.
Two things have worked against these migrant labourers. The first was the communal violence in Murshidabad that resulted in three deaths, including that of a father-son duo and major loss of property, belonging to the Hindus. The police later picked up the mastermind behind this attack from a hideout in Odisha. Investigators have said that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were behind the Murshidabad riots.
The second was the Pahalgam massacre by terrorists that left 26 persons, most of them tourists, from across the country dead.
A group of migrant workers from Beldanga in Murshidabad returned home recently and complained that they were hounded and assaulted by locals at Sambalpur in Odisha after they started work under a civil contractor there. They have registered an FIR at the Beldanga police station.
They have alleged that they were asked to produce their Aadhar Cards. When they did so, the attackers apparently tore them up and paraded them down the road till they left the area. Those who protested were allegedly assaulted. The local MLA has said that he will take up the matter with West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
