Kolkata/Sambalpur: Congress Tuesday staged a protest in front of Utkal Bhavan in Kolkata against the killing of a migrant worker from Murshidabad district in Odisha, alleging a growing pattern of violence against Bengali-speaking workers across several states.
The demonstration was led by Congress leader Manoj Chakraborty, who said the latest incident in Odisha, where a young man from Murshidabad was allegedly beaten to death, reflected an alarming trend of harassment and attacks on Bengali migrant workers.
Chakraborty claimed that workers from West Bengal were being targeted and “tortured” in states such as Odisha, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, often merely for speaking the Bengali language.
“The workers are forced to leave their homes because there is no livelihood, no jobs, in their areas. When they go outside the state to earn a living, they are attacked for their identity,” Chakraborty told reporters during the protest.
Demanding immediate government intervention, the Congress leader said the safety of migrant workers must be ensured through institutional measures. He urged the government to issue official identity cards to all migrant workers at the earliest.
“These identity cards should clearly mention the worker’s home district, the local police station and the contact number of a police officer so that they can seek immediate help while working outside the state,” he said.
The Congress leader said that such incidents would continue unless concrete steps were taken to protect migrant workers.
A 30-year-old migrant worker from West Bengal was allegedly killed in Odisha’s Sambalpur district following an altercation over a bidi recently, police said.
Juel Sheikh was working, along with a few others from West Bengal, in the construction of a building in Shanti Nagar in the Ainthapalli police station area.
They were returning from work when a group of six men stopped them and asked for a bidi. An altercation broke out, leading to a scuffle between the two sides, police said.
Juel was thrashed severely, and he died while undergoing treatment at the Sambalpur hospital. The six accused persons have been arrested by the police.
West Bengal’s ruling TMC claimed that Juel was beaten to death over suspicion that he was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant.
PTI
