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Bengal migrant worker alleges torture by Haryana police; minister visits him
The migrant worker from Bengal alleged that the Panipat police detained him on July 25 and pressured him to say that he was a Bangladeshi national just because he speaks Bengali
Kolkata: A migrant worker from Goalpokhar in West Bengal’s North Dinajpur district alleged on Wednesday that he had suffered a fracture in his right leg when he was tortured for three days by police at Haryana’s Panipat on the suspicion that he was an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant.
“The Panipat police detained me on July 25 and pressured me to say that I am a Bangladeshi national just because I speak Bengali. I said I was from West Bengal but they refused to listen. Two policemen used to grab me and two others used to hit me with batons,” Md Junaid Alam told the media at his Goalpokhar home on Wednesday.
“The torture went on for three days before they released me. I returned home yesterday with some other migrant workers,” he added.
Minister Md Ghulam Rabbani, the Trinamool Congress legislator from Goalpokhar, visited Alam’s home on Wednesday.
“Alam will file a complaint at the local police station against the Haryana police. There will be an investigation,” Rabbani said.
Alam raised the allegation days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee alleged that Delhi police physically tortured a toddler and his mother from Malda district on July 26 during the ongoing drive.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lodged a police complaint against Banerjee in Delhi on Tuesday claiming that the video she posted on social media to back her allegation was fake.
Cabinet minister Firhad Hakim presented the woman, Sanjanu Parveen, before the media in Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon, two days after deputy commissioner of police (Delhi East) Abhishek Dhania countered the allegation on Monday, calling the charges “fabricated” and “politically motivated.”
Parveen, however, stuck to her allegation and lodged a complaint against the Delhi police at Kolkata’s Pragati Maidan police station on Wednesday.
“Two male and two female police personnel, who were in civilian clothes, not only demanded ₹25,000, which my mother-in-law gave them, but also pressured me to say ‘Jai Sri Ram’ but I refused,” Parveen told the media.
The second allegation, however, was not raised earlier by her or the TMC.
The Bengal BJP unit called Parveen a liar and accused TMC of spreading misinformation.
Sukanta Majumdar, Union minister of state and former president of the BJP state unit said: “These lies were exposed by the Delhi police when it recovered footage from all security cameras from the area where the woman claimed to have been assaulted. The footage showed her walking with her two children. There was no one else with her. The Delhi police also traced her relative in Malda who instructed her to record the video,” said Majumdar.
Parveen countered this.
“Delhi police did not show any footage from the area where they assaulted me and my 18-month-old son,” she said at the TMC office.
