Are documents like centrally issued Aadhaar cards or EPICs (voter identity cards) insufficient proofs of citizenship?

The answer would be no if one is a migrant worker from Bengal in Odisha.

In Odisha, migrant workers from Bengal have been detained in multiple districts on suspicion of being Bangladeshi infiltrators despite having valid documents.

On Tuesday, 17 detentions were reported from Odisha's Balasore district.

Odisha apart, illegal detentions of Bengali-speaking migrant workers, most of them Muslims, have been reported from several BJP-ruled states.

Recently, seven migrant workers detained by the Maharashtra police on suspicion of being Bangladeshis, were pushed back to Bangladesh through the Siliguri border. Amid pressure from the Bengal government, which confirmed their citizenship, they were eventually brought back.

The issue became a flashpoint in the Bengal Assembly with chief minister Mamata Banerjee slamming the BJP for targeting poor Bengalis for political reasons. But the ordeal of Bengal's migrants refuses to end.

Mirajuddin Sheikh of Sukrabad village in Nalhati, Birbhum, said on Tuesday that 17 persons from his village, including two of his relatives, were detained by the Remuna police in Odisha's Balasore on June 25.

"Although they gave Aadhaar and voter ID cards as proofs, the police are still suspecting them as Bangladeshis. If the 17 persons aren’t released in a day or two, we have to go to Odisha to clear the doubts," Sheikh said.

If Aadhaar and EPIC were not accepted as valid identity proofs, what were people supposed to submit, especially the poor who did not have passports, he asked.

Contacted, inspector in charge of Remuna police station, Bimal Nayak, contradicted Sheikh's claim. He told The Telegraph: "These people failed to produce any valid documents regarding their stay. Investigation is on. All of them have been lodged in a detention centre. If they prove their Indian citizenships and their origins, we will release them.”

On June 9, Odisha chief minister Mohan Charan Majhi had asked the administration to initiate legal action against illegal Bangladeshi settlers. Majhi had informed the Odisha Assembly in March that 3,738 Bangladeshi infiltrators were identified in the state, with the highest number — 1,649 — in Kendrapara.

Thirty migrant workers from East Midnapore have been detained by Bhubaneswar police in Odisha for over a week. Rabibul Sheikh, originally from Moyna in East Midnapore and living in Bhubaneswar for 32 years, had hired workers for his scrap business.

"All workers have Aadhaar and voter ID cards, but no one here is willing to accept them. Authorities here are demanding confirmation from Bengal, which is yet to come," the trader said.

A senior Odisha police officer said: “To verify the documents of those detained, we are in touch with the respective collector (district magistrates) and superintendents of police of various districts of Bengal. Verification is always done at the district level."

Samirul Islam, Trinamool Rajya Sabha MP and chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board, questioned the logic behind the detentions.

"How can they reject documents like Aadhaar or EPIC? They may have suspicions about individuals being Bangladeshis.... But why is the Odisha police detaining people before verification? Every Indian citizen has the right to move freely within the country with valid identity documents like Aadhaar and voter ID," said Islam.

"Detaining someone in police custody for over 24 hours is illegal.... We have no objection to Odisha verifying people's identities with us, but that doesn’t justify detentions," Islam added.

A Bengal bureaucrat pointed out that thousands of workers from other states live in Bengal but do not face such ordeal.

BJP leader Samik Bhattacharya blamed the TMC-led Bengal government for this situation. The BJP has claimed that lakhs of infiltrators have obtained fake identity documents using Bengal addresses, often helped by panchayats and municipalities.