A migrant worker from Patiram in South Dinajpur district has purportedly been languishing in a jail in Maharashtra’s Thane district for nearly three months after being branded as a Bangladeshi and allegedly because he could not properly explain his address in Hindi.

Asit Sarkar, 54, had travelled to Maharashtra in January this year with his two sons in search of work.

The trio found jobs in a unit which manufactures gold-plated necklaces in Bhiwandi’s Sonali area. But in late February, Narpoli police raided the locality and picked up seven migrant workers, including Asit, on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals, said sources.

The police reportedly asked the workers to produce documents to prove their Indian citizenship. “All of them did. Six were released. But my husband was singled out and arrested. His crime was that he could not pronounce his home address properly in Hindi. When asked where he was from, he reportedly replied in Bengali, which made the police interpret that he was a Bangladeshi,” Asit’s wife Lipi said, sitting at her home in Patiram.

While Asit was remanded in judicial custody, his sons managed to evade arrest.

One of them, Akash, who is 22, has returned home and has been running from pillar to post, seeking help for his father’s release. He said that the Maharashtra police had come looking for him, too, in Thane.

“I barely managed to flee. Since then, no one has allowed us to meet my father in jail,” he said.

Lipi said: “My husband does not know Hindi well. That does not make him a foreigner. We have every Indian document, from the ration card to the voter ID and Aadhaar. Yet, no one is helping us.”

Local Trinamool Congress leader Rumana Khatun said Asit’s incarceration was a gross violation of human dignity and blamed language discrimination for the migrant’s ordeal in Maharashtra.

Subhash Chaki, a district vice-president of Trinamool in South Dinajpur, accused the BJP-ruled Maharashtra government of targeting Bengali-speaking migrants.

“Just because someone speaks Bengali, they cannot be labelled as Bangladeshi. This is harassment,” he said.

The BJP claimed that Union minister of state and Balurghat MP Sukanta Majumdar had taken up the issue with the authorities
concerned. “I will ensure that the family gets legal help and will push for Asit Sarkar’s bail,” said Majumdar.

Baldeb Mondal, the deputy labour commissioner in South Dinajpur district, said that Asit’s family had been asked to submit a formal complaint so that further legal steps could be taken.

Chinmoy Mittal, the superintendent of police of South Dinajpur, said: “We will take it up with the authorities concerned so that the person is released.”