Dr B Thomas (Special correspondent)
At least two migrants labourers from West Bengal and Delhi who worked as garbage collectors on Monday approached State Human Rights Commission and filed a petition seeking protection from police brutality who are threatening to buldozz their hunts and torture them to evict.
Rabbani Sardar,52 from South 24 paragana,West Bengal and Anees Bundu, 38,from East Delhi who are part of the hundred migrant labourers staying in a colony on Sarbaba Road Anekal,said that the brutality started on June 17 when a group of five to six policemen attached to Hebbagodi barged into the workplace and started abuse and cane them and even kicked them threatened to vacate within 24 hours terming us as illegal Bangladeshi .
We showed them the IDs stating that we are Indian citizen but they threw the cards away and beat us mercilessly and even women are not spared “, Sardar, said.
The police left the place and warned us that they will come back the next day with bulldozer , where should we go we are just helping to eke pout a living by collecting garbage.
Anyone listening please help, rued Ameena Khatun,a migrant labourer.
Its all started when the Madanayakanahalli police busted a racket and arrested nine persons including three Bangladesh Nationals few days ago for running a fake Id card racket.
The accused would get PAN card, Aadhar and other Id cards using fake documents and even seal and signature of gazetted officials
The police started visitng migrant colonies situated mostly in outsakirts of the city and started checking the documents and calling everyone randomly that they are bangladesh Nationals.
The migrant labourers protested and presented the documents but the cops turned them down stating as fake and told them to vacate or eldse face arrest.
Many places,the police took money from the migrant labourers after beating them and the incidents were recorded in the cctv footage, another migrant labourer said .
This amounts to police harassment and innocent people including men,women and children are being under constant threat.
The police should check and probe but they should handle with care when it comes to women and children and senior citizens”, R Kaleemullah, member of Swaraj India, a city based social group , helping the labourers,said .
When a senior police officer is contacted, he said that it is a continuation of the racket busted recently and we are looking for a Bangladesh nationals .
He rubbished the allegation of brutality and bribe we are working on the leads that some of the bangladesh nationals are taking shelters in these colonises with Indian IDS”, he said.
The police are now taking the fingerprints of the migrant labouers and recording their Id details for further investigations.
