A young migrant worker from Purulia’s Barabazaar has been found murdered in BJP-ruled Maharashtra’s Pune, which chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday termed as a “hate crime”.

The body of Sukhen Mahato was found with multiple injuries in the Koregaon-Bhima area of Shikrapur on Tuesday. Cops said the murder was committed on Monday evening.

Taking to X, Mamata expressed her horror and anger.

“I am shaken, enraged, and sickened beyond words by the barbaric murder of Sukhen Mahato, a 24-year-old migrant worker from Bandwan in Purulia, the sole earning member of his family, in Pune, Maharashtra,” Mamata wrote.

“This is nothing short of a hate crime. A young man was hunted, tortured, and murdered for his language, his identity, his roots. This is the direct consequence of a climate where xenophobia is weaponised and innocents are turned into targets...,” she wrote, demanding immediate arrests and exemplary punishment for those responsible for the crime.

On Friday, Trinamool national general secretary and Diamond Harbour MP Abhishek Banerjee is scheduled to meet Sukhen’s parents at Tumrashole village in Purulia’s Barabazaar.

Trinamool has been accusing the BJP of fomenting hatred against Bengali-speaking people by labelling them as Bangladeshi intruders. At least 10 migrant labourers from Bengal have been killed since December last year in Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra.

Sukhen, his elder brother Tulsiram and younger brother Debasish used to work in Pune as labourers for the past three years and would stay together in a small rented place
at Shikrapur.

Sukhen used to work at a motor spare parts factory and his two brothers at a gas-producing company.

His father Dhiren Mahato said in Purulia that alarm bells run when they couldn’t contact Sukhen over the phone since Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, Tulsiram went to Shikrapur police station and came to know that his brother’s body was found on Monday night and was sent for post-mortem.

“I contacted my parents in Purulia with the news,” said Tulsiram over the phone. He is scheduled to arrive in Barabazaar with the body on Friday.

Dhiren, a day labourer, said: “I am ailing now and cannot work properly. I depend on my sons. I don’t know why Sukhen was murdered.”

A little later, Dhiren amended his initial thoughts: “Sukhen couldn’t speak Hindi or Marathi. He was killed because he spoke in Bengali.”

A murder case has been registered at Shikrapur police station.

Tulsiram said he was told by Shikrapur police that two suspects had been identified.

Pune rural police said Sukhen was killed by two persons with whom he had entered into an argument while being drunk. They said there was no other angle to the murder.

“He (Sukhen) left the house to go to work at 3pm (in Monday), but started roaming in Koregaon in a drunken state,” said inspector Dipratan Gaikwad of Shikrapur. The drunk Sukhen entered into a quarrel with two persons, he added. “Our primary probe suggests that following the spat, he was allegedly murdered by the duo. We have CCTV footage in which he is seen in an unstable condition and arguing with two persons, but the actual assault was not captured on CCTV,” Gaikwad said, adding that a sharp weapon was used in the crime.

“Search for assailants is on,” he said.

BJP MP from Purulia, Jyotirmoy Singh Mahato, called the incident “unfortunate”. “At least 1 lakh unemployed youths from each district in Bengal are forced to work as migrant labourers in different states. It needs to be asked why this Mamata Banerjee government and the erstwhile Left government failed to create jobs.”