Kolkata: The Odisha government informed the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday that neither of the two migrant workers from the Murshidabad district of West Bengal, whose families moved habeas corpus applications, were arrested during the migrant workers’ verification drive in the state.
Both Sainur Islam and Rakibul Islam have returned to their homes in West Bengal, Odisha advocate general Pitambar Acharya informed the Court during a virtual appearance.
Acharya defended the verification drive in Odisha and submitted that the law grants authority to states to do certain things in respect of the suspected persons whose citizenship is in doubt under the Foreigners’ Act.
He insisted that there was no arrest and that it was a lawful verification of documents as provided in the law and claimed that the petition filed regarding this matter is frivolous in nature. The Odisha government has already submitted a status report on the matter before the court, Acharya said.
The division bench then directed the Odisha government to file an affidavit in opposition to the contention of the petitioners by August 20. The petitioners were also directed to file their reply to the contention of the Odisha government in its affidavit by August 27. The matter will come up for hearing again on August 29.
The Trinamool Congress that is in power in West Bengal turned the whole migrant workers’ verification process into a political one after the Odisha police detained 444 workers from various Bengal districts on suspicion of being illegal immigrants earlier in July.
With Assembly elections less than a year away in West Bengal, the Trinamool leadership started campaigning that BJP-ruled states like Odisha are arresting migrant labourers from Bengal on grounds of being Bangladeshis, just because they speak Bengali.
Subsequently, the families of Sainur and Rakibul filed the habeas corpus applications before the HC. The West Bengal government is being represented by senior counsel Kalyan Banerjee, who is also a Trinamool Lok Sabha MP. He told the court that the opinion about a person’s citizenship must be reasonable.
