By Maktoob
Senior Congress leader and former Lok Sabha MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury has written to Karnataka Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar, expressing concern over the alleged arbitrary profiling, detention and harassment of Bengali-speaking Indian citizens during police operations to identify undocumented Bangladeshi nationals in Bengaluru.
In his letter dated August 13, Chowdhury said “heavy-handed actions and procedural excesses” had been committed by local police against Bengali-speaking Muslims, mainly from West Bengal’s Murshidabad district.
He said a large number of Bengali migrant workers who are Indian citizens with valid identity documents earn their livelihoods as daily-wage labourers in unskilled and semi-skilled occupations across Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka.
“The fact that the physical appearance and language of these migrant workers is similar to that of Bangladeshis makes them vulnerable to ‘mistaken identity’ and are, therefore, often subjected to unwarranted harassment and excesses,” Chowdhury wrote.
He specifically referred to reports from Siddapura and Whitefield, under the jurisdiction of Varthur Police Station, where several legal residents, mostly migrants from Murshidabad, were allegedly harassed on suspicion of being Bangladeshi despite possessing valid identity and citizenship documents.
Chowdhury acknowledged the state administration’s duty to identify undocumented immigrants but said such operations should not become a means of intimidating and harassing Indian citizens on the basis of their language or religious identity.
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