By Nikita Jain
As political parties gear up for the Legislative Assembly election in Delhi, politics over Bangladeshi “illegal immigrants” has taken center stage this election season. Amid the crackdown by the Delhi Police on these “immigrants,” Bengali-speaking people who migrated to the national capital for work are caught in the chaos.
Last month, when 48-year-old Sulub Jamal went to have tea at a nearby stall, he was randomly picked up by the Delhi Police along with an elderly man present there.
“I had just gone to have tea when some men in plain clothes came and asked me my name. Then, without checking or verifying anything, they picked me and the old man beside me. We were taken to the police station and kept there for hours,” he told Maktoob.
Jamal was released after showing his papers, including his National Register of Citizens (NRC) registry. “It was not a problem to show the documents, but randomly picking us up while we are trying to earn money is becoming a problem,” he added.
Jamal, who hails from Assam, migrated to Delhi 15 years ago with his wife and children. Some of his children were even born in Delhi. A ragpicker by profession, Jamal and many others like him mostly reside in areas like Shaheen Bagh and Okhla in JJ clusters.
Surrounded by heaps of collected rags, they sell the material to factories. “Our work is to collect this rag, which our contractor usually helps us sell,” Jamal said.
Since the beginning of the year, nine Bangladeshis have reportedly been deported from India as part of a broader drive to clamp down on irregular immigration within the city. However, for Muslims from Assam and West Bengal, constant police interrogations have become a source of stress.
This story was originally published in maktoobmedia.com. Read the full story here.