A 38-year-old man who has spent the better part of his life in Gurgaon is facing fears he has never known.

The man hails from a village in North Dinajpur. Panic has gripped the working-class Bengali-speaking population in the city where he has lived since childhood.

Hundreds are being allegedly held up indefinitely in detention centres on the suspicion that they are Bangladeshis or Rohingyas staying in India illegally.

No matter if they have documents. Many are being held until police are satisfied that they are Indians.

Two of his friends and several other acquaintances have had to spend time in the detention centres.

“I never imagined things would come to this. Many of my friends have gone back to Bengal. I haven’t. I worked extremely hard for a decent life here. When I have one, it is extremely hard to let go of,” he said.

He drives an auto. He lives with his wife and two children — a son and daughter — in a housing complex in Sector 28.

He came to Gurgaon as a child with his parents in 1999. Gurgaon was a fledgling township then.

His father rode a rickshaw and his mother was a domestic help.

The man started working as a courier delivery boy in his early teens. He delivered food for eateries before driving private cars.

He bought the auto in 2016. He grew up in a slum and lived in a couple before shifting to a “respectable” neighbourhood. He lives in a small one-room terrace flat. The monthly rent is ₹8,000.

“There were more goats and grazing herds than cars. Pollution was much less. We have seen Gurgaon rise. This used to be my city. Now, I am not so sure,” he said.

He spent hours outside a community centre-turned detention centre in Sector 31, where two of his friends were taken.

He asked a guard outside why people with valid Indian documents were being treated like this.

“There are many Bangladeshis and Rohingyas. We need to check who is Indian and who is not,” he quoted the policeman as saying.

He asked a policeman about “constitutional rights”. The cop shot back and asked for proof of citizenship. The cop asked if his friends had passports.

“I told him, they are poor people. They do not need a passport. He was not happy,” the man recollected.

In the third week of July, a CPIML-Liberation fact-finding team alleged that several workers from Bengal and Assam were being held under unhygienic conditions by police in Gurgaon.

The police had then said that they were being released as soon as authorities in their home districts confirmed their citizenship.

Those detained work in sanitation, garbage sorting, construction and other informal sectors. Some of them are security guards, while others are rickshaw pullers and auto drivers.

The 38-year-old man stayed put, running back and forth between the police outpost, police station, detention centre and the homes of his friends for two days until they were released in the early hours of July 23.

The two have since returned to Bengal with their families.

Gurgaon is home to over two lakh Bengali-speaking working-class people. Many of them live in slums, which are reasonably deserted now, with locked rooms.

“I am still here mainly because my children are going to a good school. I have to stay for now. But I want to live with my head held high,” he said.

Metro refrained from naming him to spare him possible persecution.