Habeas corpus pleas in Cal HC over 'detention' of migrant labourers from Bengal in Odisha: TMC MP

Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member Samirul Islam on Friday said that two habeas corpus petitions have been filed before the Calcutta High Court against the Odisha Police, alleging that several migrant labourers from West Bengal were detained there without following due legal process.

A habeas corpus petition is a legal remedy seeking direction to produce a person who is missing or has been illegally detained.

The TMC MP, who is also the chairman of the West Bengal Migrant Welfare Board, claimed that no custody memo over the alleged arrests of the migrant labourers was issued by the police in the neighbouring state in violation of the law.

He said that two separate habeas corpus petitions have been filed before the Calcutta High Court, seeking that the persons from West Bengal, who have allegedly been picked up by the police in Odisha, be produced before it.

West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant had on Thursday written to his Odisha counterpart, urging him to put an end to ''harassment'' of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in certain parts of the neighbouring state.

Pant, in the letter, said the migrant workers are being ''targeted because they speak Bengali, which is their mother tongue and ''unjustly labelled as Bangladeshis''.

The labourers include daily wage earners, rickshaw pullers and domestic workers.

''We are receiving reports of such individuals being detained without due legal process in regions around Paradip and across coastal districts such as Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak, Malkangiri, Balasore and Cuttack. What is even more concerning is that, even when these persons produce valid identity documents, their claims are being dismissed,'' Pant said in the letter.

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