By Mirza Mosaraf Hossain, TwoCircles.net
In an extremely controversial step, the Mumbai Police arrested six Bengali people from West Bengal’s East Burdwan district for being ‘illegal’ Bangladeshis working and living in Mumbai.
The six people, some of whom have been working for two decades in Mumbai, were arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department of Crawford Market, Mumbai, for the suspicion of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants. However, the Police refused to check their Indian identity cards despite their repeated pleas of showing them to the police. Among the arrested persons, one was a student and two other minors. What is even more shocking is that the two minors are kept in two separate Juvenile Homes and their mother in another jail.
On January 25, the C.I.D picked up Suman Mollah, a student of the Byculla Municipal Secondary School, his paternal cousin, Asgar Ali Mollah, Asgar’s brother Nurul Haque Mollah, Nurul’s wife, Rina Bibi and her 11 years son and 8 years daughter from their Darukhana residence under Sewri Police station. The C.I.D refused to check their Voter Cards and Adhaar cards when they tried to approach to show it and asked them to produce it in their office. They faced the same fate of in the Crime branch office when they tried to prove that they were Indians, and instead were directed to produce them in Court.
They are now in four different jails and Children Home. The male adults are in Akhtar Road Jail, the woman is at the Carter Road jail and the two minors at Chembur Children’s Home in Mankhurd and Dongri Children’s Home.
The six arrested persons are originally from Kalinagar Village of Dhatrigram locality in East Burdwan’s Kalna Sub-Division. The flood of 2000 in West Bengal forced many villagers of Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly and other districts to migrate to the other Indian states for livelihood. This Mollah family was one of them. They migrated to Mumbai after the mishaps they suffered by the flood and since then, they have been living there working as snail suppliers to the nearby markets. Even some of the children of the family, who were brought to Mumbai at a young age, received primary and upper primary education there in their Sewri residence locality.
Ali Akbar Mollah, the father of Suman Mollah, now 42 years old, managed to hire an Advocate after his return from his village on January 27, where he had gone on January 17 to clarify some documents to ensure a house that he got under Indira Gandhi Awas Yojana. Asgar and Nurul used to work under him. According to him, police did not allow him to see his nephew’s wife and her children even after many pledges, citing there is no blood relation with them and they will only allow those who have blood relations with them. He also revealed that other four Bengalis including his nephew, Safikul Sarkar, are in jail for the last two months arrested by the Thane Police Station in Maharashtra Thane district for the same reason of being branded ‘illegal Bangladeshis’.
In a conversation with TwoCircles.Net, he said, “For the last 16 years we are living here, working as suppliers of snails to the nearby markets like Crawford Market, Dadar Market and Manish Market that comes through trains from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and other states. In the past, C.I.D has arrested us on charges of being ‘Bangladeshis’ after they would hear us speaking in Bengali and living our Bengali lifestyle. But they would release us after we showed our Indian Voter ID and Aadhaar cards. But for the last two months, they are arresting many of us as ‘Bangladeshis’ and refusing to check our Indian Identity Cards.” He added, “Where will we go if things like this happen frequently? Are we not Indians? Are we not Bengalis who have been living there from generation to generation? Are our Indian Identity Cards not sufficient to prove our Indian Citizenship? If not, then what else? Please specify that we will do every possible way to prove our Indianness and Citizenship.”
Aniket Gawand, the Advocate for the case, said, “I have applied for the remand as well as the certified F.I.R copies. I am looking forward to getting these within two days. I am looking to seeing the case as early as possible because there are two minors too who have been arrested.”
The incident has stirred the ethos of the Bengali community in West Bengal and it has turned to be a hot topic in social media. Samirul Islam, the President of Bangla Sanskriti Mancha, and his team are trying to get these workers released as early as possible. “We have started all the legal proceeding in this case and will fight till the end against this injustice. Our organisation Bengal Sanskriti Mancha is always with the families of the victims. We appeal to all the people of West Bengal to come forward and protest against the series of attacks on migrant Bengalis,” he said.