Congress leader Adhir meets PM Modi over attacks on Bangla-speaking migrants

New Delhi: Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Tuesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and raised the issue of attacks on Bengali-speaking people, especially in BJP-ruled states.

Chowdhury, a former Congress chief in West Bengal, urged the prime minister's intervention in helping stop such attacks, which, he said, could lead to communal tension and possibly violence in the state.

"Their only offence is that they speak in Bengali language which are often misunderstood by the concerned administration as persons belonging to neighbouring Bangladesh and treated as infiltrators," Chowdhury said in a letter to Modi.

Several parts of West Bengal have a majority Muslim population and share a border with Bangladesh, and communal tension is rising among communities in these areas as a result of such attacks elsewhere in the country, he said.

The Congress leader urged the prime minister to "sensitize all the state governments" against discrimination, violence, and persecution of migrant labourers from other parts of the country.

A 30-year-old migrant worker, Jewel Rana from the Jangipur region in Murshidabad district in West Bengal, was killed in Sambalpur of Odisha on Wednesday following an altercation over a 'bidi'.

Two migrant workers in Mumbai were also arrested in Mumbai on suspicion of being illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

West Bengal Migrants Welfare Board has also said that it received 1,143 complaints of harassment in 10 months, especially in the BJP-ruled states.