A migrant worker from Anwarberia village in Habra, North 24-Parganas, who was allegedly tortured by Maharashtra police in June after being picked up on suspicion of being a Bangladeshi, died on Sunday night, unable to recover from the physical and mental trauma, his family claimed.
The deceased, Golam Mondal, 54, was a housekeeping employee at a Mumbai gym.
According to his family, Mondal’s ordeal began on June 9 when Maharashtra police detained him as an illegal immigrant. Released on June 14 in a fragile condition, he brought back home by a politico-social organisation, Desh Bachao Ganamancha, on June 26. He did not get better despite medical intervention.
Mondal’s death has reignited the controversy over the targeted harassment of Bengali-speaking migrant workers — Muslims and even Hindus — as “illegal Bangladeshis” across BJP-ruled states.
Golam’s family alleged that his death was due to physical and mental trauma.
On Sunday, as his respiratory distress worsened, Golam was rushed to Kachua Hospital and then to Barasat State General Hospital, which referred him to RG Kar hospital in Calcutta. RG Kar doctors recommended immediate ICU admission, but as no ICU bed was available, he died soon after.
“It is actually a murder… Maharashtra police killed my father. He couldn’t bear the physical and mental torture. They tagged my father as a Bangladeshi, threatened him, abused him and asked him to leave Mumbai. During his five-day stay in police custody, he was given a single piece of samosa or a single pav as food for the day and chilled water. He kept under the open sky,” Golam’s daughter Marjina Khatun wept.
She told reporters how Golam and she were picked up by cops on June 9 evening, even though her father "produced Aadhaar, EPIC and all other documents".
On Monday, a team from Desh Bachao Ganamancha, led by singer Saikat Mitra, visited Golam’s home at Anwarberia. Members of the organisation termed his death the “first martyrdom” in what they called “language terror unleashed by BJP-ruled states”.
Mitra said: “Golam Mondal has been killed gradually, almost the same way people were killed in concentration camps by Adolf Hitler. BJP-ruled state governments have adopted the same policy for those who speak in Bengali. To them, Bangladeshi and Indian Bengali-speaking people have become synonymous."
Samirul Islam, Trinamool Rajya Sabha member and West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board chairman, blamed the “BJP-ruled Maharashtra government’s inhuman torture” for Mondal’s death.