The CPM has in a letter to Union home minister Amit Shah flagged the “blatant violation of minimum human rights” in the way people were allegedly being harassed and tortured by police in a North Delhi slum over suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.

Party central committee members Brinda Karat and Anurag Saxena, who is also the Delhi state secretary, led a fact-finding team to a slum in Bawana on Thursday.

“We were shocked to find blatant violation of minimum human rights, harassment and in some cases, corruption amounting to extortion,” they wrote to Shah.

They cited the example of Md Nizamuddin from Godda district in Jharkhand who
had migrated to Delhi several decades ago. The letter states that he lives on a plot in
Bawana JJ Colony allotted to him by the Delhi Development Authority in 2004.

“On July 5, a team of police personnel from the local thana went to his house and accused him of helping a Bangladeshi to get illegal papers. He explained to the police that the tenant was staying there three years ago and he has no contact and had no idea of the person’s whereabouts. On July 6, the police came back around 6am and handcuffed Nizamuddin in full public view, as though he is a hardened criminal, literally dragged him to the thana. This time, they accused him of being a Bangladeshi,” the letter stated.

Nizamuddin’s 28-year-old daughter Shabnam followed him to the police station and produced all relevant documents, including the property the family owned in Jharkhand. However, the cops thrashed Nizamuddin and coerced him to confess that he gave shelter to a Bangladeshi to avoid being declared a Bangladeshi himself, the letter alleged.

“The police picked up his entire family, including an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old, abusing them all the time. They were released at 1am. Again, the next day on July 8, at 6am they were taken to Vijay Vihar police station. Here again, they were harassed. Their photographs were repeatedly taken, including the photographs of the young women of the family,” Karat and Saxena wrote.

The letter also mentioned Sajan Saudagar Das, a resident of Bawana C block, who was picked up by the police on May 6 and taken to Pitampura police station. They alleged that Das was beaten up by two policemen who wanted to extract a confession that he was a Bangladeshi.

“When he pleaded with them, they hit him with lathis, threw him on the ground and kicked him on his ears with their boots. One ear was badly injured. Another police officer checked his mobile phone and then said that he was picked up ‘by mistake’. They later told him they had got ‘information’ that he was speaking in Bengali and so they picked him up,” the letter added.

Karat and Saxena wrote about the plight of three women aged between 60 and 70 years who were brought to India from Bangladesh by their parents when they were children.

“These women have married in India, their children have been born and educated here and have their own families. All three of them are widows. They were picked up by the police and taken to the police chowki in Sector 5 where they were kept for
three days and nights. All their documents were taken away from them. They were produced before an officer in RK Puram, their biometrics taken and then they were sent back to their jhuggis (huts),” the letter states.

The CPM leaders asked Shah whether it was a crime in India to speak Bengali and if all Bengali-speaking Muslim citizens of India would be treated as criminals and illegal immigrants.

“We would like to remind you that 26 per cent of the population of West Bengal are Bengali-speaking Muslims. Also, there are international norms for deportation of illegal immigrants. The present methods of identification in Delhi violate all such norms.

“We hope you will consider these issues and intervene to restore human rights, humane behaviour of the law enforcement agencies and adequately compensate the victims for their losses,” they wrote.