Odisha Police rounds up over 400 suspected Bangladeshis and Rohingyas in Jharsuguda, TMC’s Mahua Moitra claims they are all workers from West Bengal
In a major crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Odisha government has detained 444 suspected Bangladeshi nationals and Rohingyas in the Jharsuguda district of Odisha, who are undergoing a verification process that started on Monday (7th July). Out of the detainees, 265 persons have been temporarily kept at Surabhi Kalyana Mandap, and the remaining are lodged at a holding centre on the premises of Black Diamond College of Engineering and Technology.
As per reports, Police are verifying the documents of the detainees, many of whom have been working as labourers, masons, hawkers and house painters in different parts of the district. The action of the state government is part of the broader operations launched on the directions of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to identify foreign nationals illegally staying in the country.
Addressing the media on Monday, Northern Range IG Himansu Kumar Lal said the verification of the detained individuals is going on, and further action will be taken accordingly. Jharsuguda Superintendent of Police (SP) Parmar Smit Parshottamdas said that a Special Task Force (STF) was formed as per the guidelines of the MHA to identify the foreign nationals living illegally in the state.
Their document verification is also being carried out in compliance with the guidelines issued by the MHA and the Odisha government. “These people were mainly working in the construction sector, while some were engaged in the mining sector. All 444 of them are men,” the SP said on Tuesday (8th July). “A drive was launched by the STF within different police limits in the district during which 444 people were identified and shifted to two holding centres for verification,” he added.
TMC MP Mahua Moitra claims that the detainees are from her constituency
While the verification process of the suspected Bangladeshis and Rohingyas is still going on, TMC MP Mahua Moitra claimed that the detainees are ‘Bengali workers’ and 23 out of them are from her constituency.
“23 workers from Mirzapur village Panighata GP in my constituency are being illegally detailed with 421 other Bengali workers at interrogation centre by Orient Police Station in Jharsuguda, Odisha despite full documentation,” Moitra wrote on X on 9th July.
She posted a video showing a large hall with the detainees, where a man can be heard saying that they are Indians, and they have been detained as they were suspected to be Bangladeshis. He appealed to the West Bengal chief minister to take action on the matter.
In March this years, Odisha CM Mohan Charan Majhi informed the state assembly that 3738 Bangladeshi infiltrators have been identified in Odisha so far, who have been living in different parts of the state, including Bhdrak, Kendrapara, Bhubaneswar, Jagatsinghpur, Malkangiri and Nabrangpur. He said that the state government has been coordinating with the central government for the identification and deportation of the Bangladeshi infiltrators.
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