Haryana governor Ashim Kumar Ghosh has conveyed his concerns to the state’s chief secretary and DGP over allegations that Bengali-speaking migrant workers are facing harassment and atrocities in the northern state.

Haryana chief secretary Anurag Rastogi and director general of police Shatrujeet Kapur called on the governor at Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh on Tuesday for their first courtesy meeting since Ghosh was sworn in. Ghosh, a retired political science professor and former Bengal BJP chief, was appointed as the governor on July 21.

“On Tuesday, the chief secretary and DGP came
for a courtesy meeting. I raised the concerns of people from West Bengal about whether they have been harassed. Both of them confirmed that the state authorities have no animosity towards genuine residents of Bengal and that Haryana maintains good relations with the state. They also said that many people from Haryana live in Bengal and are treated well by Bengalis there,” Ghosh told The Telegraph over the phone from Haryana.

“They reassured me that those detained were suspected of being Rohingya or Bangladeshi Muslims. They claimed the problem began when the detainees failed to produce documents to prove their identity. I requested them to take care of genuine residents of Bengal,” the governor added.

A source in Haryana Raj Bhavan, however, said the chief secretary and the DGP admitted that there might have been instances where genuine Bengali residents had been detained because lower-tier police officers involved in detecting infiltrators assumed they were Bangladeshis because of their language.

“However, the two top officials reassured that once the documents were verified, everyone was released immediately,” the source said.

The source said Rastogi and Kapur had also told the governor that it was very challenging to identify those who had entered India from Bangladesh 10–15 years back but had since managed to acquire fake identity documents showing them as residents
of Bengal.

“As a result, the police in Haryana have been taking extra time to verify that all those released have genuine documents. The police in the BJP-ruled state are also sending particulars of those claiming to be genuine Indian citizens for cross-checking to their Bengal counterparts,” the source said.

Since the Union home ministry directed state governments across the country to “detect and deport” infiltrators from Bangladesh, there had been complaints of Bengali-speaking Indian citizens from various districts of Bengal being unlawfully detained and harassed. Among the BJP-ruled states, Haryana is repeatedly accused by the Bengal government of harassing migrant workers.

Around 300 migrant workers, both men and women, returned to their native district of South Dinajpur from Gurgaon in the past 24 hours to avoid alleged harassment by the police and the administration in Haryana during the last week of July.

Mohammad Junaid Alam, a migrant worker from North Dinajpur, on Thursday lodged a complaint at the Goalpokhar police station against the Panipat police in Haryana over alleged torture in custody.

Governor Ghosh’s concern over migrant workers was significant at a time when the BJP was trying to establish that most of the detainees were either Rohingya or Bangladeshi Muslims.

Samirul Islam, Trinamool Congress MP and the chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board, recently visited multiple Bengali settlements in Gurgaon. On Friday, he claimed on social media that most Bengali migrant workers from various districts had left Gurgaon in panic after being branded as Bangladeshis.

“I had visited most of the Bengali settlements in Gurugram, Haryana.... From all the settlements, most Bengali migrant workers have returned to our West Bengal...,” he wrote in his social media handle.

The Congress also took up the issue with Imran Ali Ramz, a former MLA from North Dinajpur, visiting Haryana to meet migrant workers. On Wednesday, a delegation led by former MP Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury travelled to Panipat and met the “traumatised” workers.

“Our party has formed a monitoring cell and is reaching out to the workers who are in distress in other states,” Imran said.