Men in Gurugram’s ‘Holding Centres’ say they are detained just for speaking Bengali
Gurugram: Men in Gurugram’s ‘Holding Centres’ say they are detained just for speaking Bengali.
According to Kashmir Media Service, on July 19, Hafizur Sheikh (41) had finished his shift as a cleaner outside a store in Gurugram when he was stopped by policemen and interrogated. Sheikh answered all their questions, but then he was asked to produce his identity cards to verify his citizenship.
Despite having an Aadhaar card, a voter ID card and other identity documents on his phone, he was told that this was not enough. “The police wanted a physical copy,” his brother Amanur told The Wire. “My brother told them that he could bring the physical copy or they could accompany him to check the documents personally, but they did not listen and he was detained.”
Hafizur Sheikh, from West Bengal’s Nadia district, is among hundreds of mostly Muslim migrants detained by the police in Haryana’s Gurugram. These men usually work as cleaners or domestic workers, and delivery agents in Gurugram.
On July 19, police detained at least 74 migrant workers – 11 from West Bengal and 63 from Assam – who they suspect are undocumented foreign nationals from neighbouring Bangladesh. They were taken to what the police are calling “holding centres” – that rights activists say are akin to detention camps. “This camp [in Sector 10, Gurugram],” said advocate and Communist Party of India (Marxist–Leninist) member Supanta Sinha, “has over 200 detainees.”
On July 21, a two-member CPI-ML team visited one of the makeshift detention camps in Gurugram’s Sector 10 after they received “news of detention of scores of migrant workers purportedly for ascertaining their citizenship.” Sinha was a part of that team. He said that the workers were being forced to live under inhumane conditions. A CPI-ML statement said “similar exercises have been conducted in other parts of Gurgaon as well, with some zones housing over 200 detainees currently”.
These detentions appear to follow a Ministry of Home Affairs directive, said Sinha. They come in the backdrop of a nationwide drive against alleged undocumented foreign nationals. However, multiple reports show that Bengali-speaking Muslim migrants from West Bengal and Assam are facing the brunt of these drives.
When asked about the charges under which the migrants are being detained, Gurugram Police PRO Sandeep Kumar said, “They are not detained. As per the guidelines of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), certain holding centres have been created, and suspected Bangladeshis are being kept there. All basic necessities, including medical facilities, are being provided to them at the centres.”
The Wire visited a neighbourhood in Gurugram’s Khatola village, known for its large Assamese Muslim population. On one side of the road stand tall, eye-catching multi-storey buildings housing corporate offices like that of American Express, while on the other side lies a slum cluster housing Assamese migrants who work as cleaners in these offices.
Residents claimed that nearly 2,000 people used to live in the area. However, when The Wire visited, the colony was almost entirely deserted. Only around 10-12 women were present, who were about to visit their husbands and other male relatives currently held in detention centres.
“How can we leave while our husbands and other relatives are rotting in detention centres? Who knows what the police will do to them?” said Rohima, when asked why she had stayed behind when most others had fled. The women claimed that on July 19, police detained over 40 men from the area. Among those detained was Rohima’s husband, Nazrul Islam Mondal.
Rohima says Mondal was detained by the police despite having almost every document, even his name is in the National Register of Citizens.
“Since the day my husband was taken away, I haven’t been able to eat. My 12-year-old daughter hasn’t been to school because her father was the one who used to drop her off,” said Sayra Bano, whose husband Rokibuz Husain is also among those detained. Both Sayra and her husband work as domestic workers.
When asked if they plan to continue living in the area after their husbands are released, most of the women said they would leave once their family members return. “Who can live in such an environment, constantly under threat?” said a woman accompanying Bano.
