It may not be necessary any more to be a Bengali speaker to be branded a “Bangladeshi” in certain parts of the country.
Police in BJP-ruled states were this summer accused of harassing Bengali-speaking Indians after labelling them “Bangladeshis”.
Now, a BJP Rajya Sabha member has tagged Lucknow’s municipal sweepers — mostly local Valmikis (Dalits) — as “Bangladeshis” and “terrorists” and demanded they be deported.
Brij Lal, a former IPS officer who headed Uttar Pradesh police in 2011-2012, told reporters on Friday that he often asks the street sweepers he meets during his morning walks where they hail from.
“They avoid a direct answer. When I insist, they say they belong to Assam. Then they will tell you the name of a village, for example, Bongai,” he said.
“Actually, they are Bangladeshis living illegally in India. They are a law-and-order threat. They may be terrorists.”
Bongaigaon, a town in Assam, is the headquarters of Bongaigaon district.
A civic official told this newspaper that there are no Bengalis among the city’s municipal sweepers.
“I served in Assam as an officer with the Provincial Armed Constabulary and can tell you that these people’s accent is different from that of the people of Assam. They are from Bangladesh,” Brij Lal told reporters.
On Thursday, the MP had appealed to chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Facebook to verify the identities of Lucknow’s conservancy staff, and alleged that several government departments were issuing fake identity documents to them.
Questioned by reporters on Friday, he suggested that some of the sweepers could be members of sleeper cells set up by Bangladeshi terror groups.
“They will get activated when their terrorist organisations need them. We shouldn’t forget that we have Babu Bhai, a dreaded terrorist, in jail here,” he said.
Jalaluddin alias Babu Bhai, an alleged Harkat-ul-Jihad Islami leader, is charged with helping fund the 9/11 attacks in the US. He is accused of disguising himself as a fruit seller and kidnapping a Calcutta businessman, and then diverting the ransom to terrorists. He has been in the Lucknow district jail since 2007.
Brij Lal said the state government should ask the police to verify every Lucknow sweeper’s identity.
“I’m sure we’ll find they don’t belong to Assam…. We can put them in detention centres before they are deported to Bangladesh,” he said.
Samajwadi Party spokesperson Deepak Ranjan said: “They (the BJP) have been in power at the Centre for 11 years and in Uttar Pradesh for eight years. It’s a matter of shame for them that terrorists are living here. The fact is, these people need a hate issue every now and then to keep diverting attention from their misrule.”