A group of eight migrant workers from Bengal was allegedly brutally attacked and driven out of a bread factory in Chhattisgarh’s Surajpur district by Bajrang Dal members. The eight workers belong to Jangalmahal’s Purulia district in West Bengal.
The workers, belonging to Chepri village in Purulia district, were subjected to severe violence, after they asked the factory owner for fair wages.
Following the attack, four of the workers – Sheikh Jasim, Sheikh Aslam, Sheikh Babi, and Sheikh Julfukar – managed to return home to Purulia, while the remaining four, Sheikh Ismail, Sheikh Minar, Arbaz Kazi and Sheikh Sahil, all of whom are minors, are still in a government shelter home in Surajpur. The district police administration of Purulia is trying to bring these workers back to their families.
Fear among the villagers
After the brutal assault, a shadow of fear has fallen over the village as most families in Chepri have members working elsewhere as migrant labour. Questions of migrant workers’ safety, especially those who speak Bengali, are being raised in light of recent attacks in Odisha, Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana.
The workers who returned from Chhattisgarh after the assault no longer want to leave home for work. However, there is no work available locally either, leaving the eight families in a lurch.
Around 300 Muslim families reside in Chepri village, situated approximately 256 kms from Kolkata.
“Most of the people in our village do not own any cultivated land. The few who have small plots of land cannot sustain their families with it. As a result, for the past 15 years, youth and middle aged men from almost every family have been migrating to other states to work as migrant laborers. It has increased further in the last four years” said Sheikh Nazir Uddin, elderly resident of the village.
According to Sheikh Abu Talim, another resident of Chepri, people from the village travel elsewhere for work mostly find employment in bread bakeries across different regions of the country.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.