Trinamul Congress leaders on Sunday went to the Jai Hind Camp in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj to show solidarity with residents, mostly Bengali-speaking migrant workers, who have been living without power supply for the last five days amid the fear of demolition of their homes.
Alleging vendetta politics, Trinamool leaders slammed the BJP government of Delhi for harassing Bengali-speaking people by accusing them as Bangladeshi infiltrators, calling it an act of cruelty and injustice.
They said residents in the camp, who were living under the threat of eviction, were “being threatened, harassed, and stripped of their basic rights”.
Three days after chief minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted about the harassment of the Bengali-speaking people in the national capital, her party’s delegation comprising MPs Sukhendu Shekhar Roy, Sagarika Ghose and Saket Gokhale went to the Jai Hind Camp and spent around an hour there for a first-hand account.
During their visit, Trinamool leaders spoke to the residents of the camp and learnt that they had been facing harassment in December 2024 in the name of citizenship verification.
Residents told them they were accused of being Bangladeshi and Rohingya
infiltrators.
Residents faced major problems without electricity, the Trinamool delegation found out.
Without lights and fans, they were struggling in humidity and heat, they said. While mosquitoes had increased in the monsoon, without electricity, the residents had no way to escape. They also couldn’t get their phones charged.
They were also facing acute water scarcity as supply from tankers had been stopped, residents told the visiting delegation.
Among the 3,000-odd residents living there, many are ragpickers while some work as domestic workers and daily wage earners.
Most are from Cooch Behar in Bengal but some 50-60 families are Assamese and other states too.
Flagging the alarming situation at the Jai Hind Camp, Trinamool stated on X: “The BJP has normalised the persecution of Bengalis, but we will not stand by and watch our people suffer in silence.”
“Bengali-speaking citizens are increasingly facing discrimination and harassment in BJP ruled states.... Our hearts go out to our brothers and sisters in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj who are being subjected to inhuman treatment by the Rekha Gupta Govt,” the party said.
The party also said that residents in camp are “being threatened, harassed, and stripped of their basic rights.”
“Their pain is our pain. Their fight is our fight. We will always stand by its people, with strength, with compassion, and with an unshakable resolve,” the statement read.
Asfter his visit, MP Roy said: “They are as Indian as us... They have their papers.”
Accusing the BJP of harassing Bengalis, Roy alleged that “power supply was disconnected to compel the migrants to leave the camp”.
“All of a sudden, their electricity has been cut off, the water connection cut off and they are being compelled to leave that place because the area comprises about 5 acres and is owned by some private parties,” Roy said.
“In this Amrit Kaal, these people don’t have any place to reside in our country
only because they are speaking Bengali. The authorities are on their feet to initiate
all such inhuman action against them,” he said, appealing to all political parties and social organisations in Delhi to stand with them on humanitarian grounds.
MP Ghose said they came to know that all residents in the camp had valid documents with them but were harassed constantly.
“This systematic attack on Bangla speakers is unconstitutional and illegal,” she said.
“They are not from Bangladesh, but Bengal. Migrant labour builds our “smart cities”, yet they are being tormented by the Bangla Birodhi BJP,” Ghose wrote on X, adding that shocking atrocities were inflicted on residents of Jai Hind Camp.
The power supply in the camp had been provided through a system of main meters and sub-meters installed in two common community spaces, a temple and a mosque.
It was stopped on July 8 following a court order in May over allegations of power theft in the informal settlement that is home to some of Delhi’s poorest amid piles of trash and waterlogged lanes.
People told Trinamool leaders that electricity was cut without prior notice. The residents, facing eviction orders by the judiciary, are likely to move court seeking relief.