Bhubaneswar: A three-member police team arrived in Odisha’s Sambalpur on Sunday to investigate the death of Juel Rana, a young migrant labourer from West Bengal.
According to sources, the team from Suti police station in Murshidabad district comprises a sub-inspector (SI), an ASI and a constable.
The 19-year-old migrant labourer was lynched in Shanti Nagar area under Ainthapali police limits of Sambalpur on the evening of December 24 by a group of six men, while he along with seven other migrant workers from West Bengal were at a tea stall. They were employed at a construction site there.
On Saturday, the West Bengal police informed that it was sending a team to Odisha to conduct an inquiry at the place of occurrence with a zero FIR registered at Suti police station.
While all six accused were arrested, Odisha Police have attributed the murder to an altercation over a bidi that escalated into violence. However, two of his co-workers, who were injured in the incident, claimed they were assaulted on suspicion of being Bangladeshis. They alleged that t
he attack began with a demand for identity proof.
Addressing the issue in a post on X, Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee strongly condemned what she described as “brutal oppression, harassment and violence” against Bengali-speaking people in “every BJP-ruled state”. She further claimed that migrant workers from Muslim-majority Murshidabad were “now returning home in fear”.
Responding to the allegations, BJP state president Manmohan Samal advised the neighbouring state to refrain from politicising such an ‘unfortunate’ incident. “The focus instead should be on what can be done to deliver justice (to the worker) and corrective actions to prevent a recurrence,” he told reporters.
Inspector General of Police, Northern Range, Himansu Lal, said that SP Sambalpur formed 6 different teams and arrested all the accused in 12 hours. “…it’s a great achievement and the team is investigating the case further under SP Sambalpur’s supervision…,” he said.
Lal further noted that their investigation has nothing to do with the police team arriving from Bengal. “Our team is probing the incident in a professional manner based on the FIR lodged here,” he added.