Some of the labourers who have fled Kerala outside Domkal police station. Telegraph picture

Domkal (Murshidabad), Dec. 30: Hundreds of day labourers from Bengal have allegedly been forced to flee Kerala because they couldn’t provide “character certificates”.

Some of them said the police there were not happy with voters’ identity cards and had issued a 24-hour ultimatum to leave the state or face arrest.

Ashraf Mian, 42, a mason from Bagdanga in Murshidabad, 250km from Calcutta, said: “Things became tough for us after the terror attacks in Mumbai. Kerala police are not only checking everyone’s voter ID to ascertain citizenship but demanding character certificates from our local Murshidabad police stations saying there are no cases pending against us. We will be allowed to return if only we can produce the certificates.”

Litton Sheikh, Rustum Mandal and six others from Brindabanpur returned home after police in Ernakulam allegedly told them to leave within 24 hours.

“They told 14 masons, including us, to leave Kerala within 24 hours or be arrested. We left Kerala on December 15, stayed at Chennai for three days and returned home on December 22,” said Rustum, 40.

He had asked Domkal police station for a “character certificate”. “But the officers told us they would provide no such thing.”

Litton had requested Ernakulam police to allow him to stay “for a few more days since our contractor owed us Rs 30,000. But they thrashed me. After that, we could not risk staying on”.

Nearly 5,000 people from Murshidabad go to Kerala for work every year.

The wages for day labou-rers there are several times more than in Bengal. A mason earning Rs 80 a day in Murshidabad and Rs 125 in Calcutta can get up to Rs 350 a day in Kerala. Helps who get Rs 50 a day in Murshidabad earn around Rs 250 a day there.

“Moreover, when we go to another state, there is the guarantee of a regular job,” said Rezaul Mandal, 30, also of Brindabanpur.

Kochi police commissioner Manoj K. Abraham denied demanding character certificates, but confirmed a drive to ascertain identities of migrant labourers and create a databank. “It’s absolutely false to say that we’d asked for papers to prove that the labourers were not on crime records. Even if someone has been involved in a crime in Bengal, it does not bar him from working here. But we’ve been compiling a repository for all labourers from outside Kerala, not just Bengal.”

Abraham said all that was required were a photo and an address proof. “A few lakh labourers have submitted voter identity cards to establish their identities. But some Bangladeshis were caught in rural Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. That would have put the scare in some.”

The police had started compiling the database following reports that dubious elements could enter Kerala in the garb of migrant labourers.

The police officer claimed that many migrant day labourers were now returning home “because of the slump in the construction industry”.

However, Mujibur Mandal, who works under a contractor in Ernakulam, had a different story to tell. He was allegedly told to produce the character certificate by December 30 or leave by December 31.

“I tried getting a certificate faxed. But Murshidabad police refused to give me one. I have no choice, I have to leave by Wednesday,” Mujibur said from Ernakulam.

Hundreds like him, he added, were on the way back.

Murshidabad’s acting police chief Deepnarayan Goswami said: “We don’t have the exact number, but at least 500 people have approached various police stations for character certificates after their return from Kerala.”

He pleaded helplessness on the certificates. “We can issue character certificates to organisations or agencies but not individuals. Local police stations do not have the authority to issue such certificates.”