Mozahar Sheikh, a resident of North Dinajpur who works in Rajasthan, is now conversing in Hindi, rather than Bengali, while talking to Hatim Ali, fellow migrant and neighbour.

The reason is pure fear. Sheikh, Ali and 250 others, all Bengali-speaking persons from different villages under the Itahar police station in North Dinajpur, were detained for around nine hours by the Rajasthan state police on Tuesday as the latter suspected them to be Bangladeshis.

All of them work in residential societies in the Fulbag area under Rajasthan's Alwar district. While the women work as cooks and housemaids, the men are drivers, car cleaners and day labourers in various locations.

“We were detained yesterday (Tuesday) and were questioned for hours as we spoke in Bengali. That is why we are speaking in Hindi from today (Wednesday) even while conversing among ourselves, especially at the places where we work, so that people understand we are not Bangladeshis but Indians,” Sheikh, who is from Khisahar village of Itahar, said over the phone.

He said that on Tuesday morning, like any other day, they went to their places of work. Around 6am, the police teams reached the places and picked them up. They were taken to Ambedkar Bhavan, a community hall in the area, and asked to prove their identities.

“Initially, we were made to stand on the ground under the scorching sun. After some time, all of us were shoved into the halls,” said Ali.

As the workers asked the police personnel about their detention, they didn’t get any proper reply.

“We showed our identity proofs, but they went on saying that we are Bangladeshis as we converse only in Bengali. We were worried as to whether we too would be pushed into Bangladesh,” Hamidur Rahaman, who works as a driver, said.

He said that recently, three migrant workers from Bengal were detained in other states and were handed over to the BSF, who, in turn, sent them to Bangladesh. As the issue surfaced, the state government took up the issue with the BSF, who, in turn, brought the trio back.

As the workers remained detained at the community hall, some of them informed their families in Itahar, who in turn contacted Mosharraf Hossen, the Itahar TMC MLA.

The MLA, in turn, informed chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who asked chief secretary Manoj Pant to take up the matter with the authorities concerned in Rajasthan. Pant spoke to officials of the Rajasthan government. Around 4pm on Tuesday, the workers were released.

“We have not faced any further problems since then. But most of us are panicky about speaking in Bengali now, even among ourselves. We feel it can lead to trouble. That is why we are conversing in Hindi even among ourselves. It was evident that the local police suspect any Bengali-speaking person, specifically from the minority community, as a Bangladeshi,” Rahaman said.

The chief minister on Tuesday had expressed her anguish over the harassment of migrant workers of Bengal. "Has it become a crime to speak in Bengali, the language of Rabindranath Tagore, Swami Vivekananda, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose...? I suppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not aware of this development. I will draw his attention to it," Mamata had told newspersons.

The detentions have left family members back in North Dinajpur worried. “My sons and daughters-in-law work in Rajasthan. Yesterday (Tuesday), they were detained and told they were Bangladeshis. We are worried if they'd face further harassment,” said Baharah Bewa of Khisahar village, Itahar.

MLA Hossen, also the state president of the TMC’s minority cell, said these detentions were the handiwork of the saffron ecosystem to harass migrant workers of the minority community.

“Such detentions and harassments regularly happen in the BJP-ruled states. We condemn it. We have asked the migrant workers to inform us in case they face any problem,” he said.