"Construction workers mistakenly detained by BJP members on suspicion of being from Bangladesh, but Odisha police confirms they are residents of Bengal."

Several workers of the BJP’s youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha, rounded up 34 people at a construction site in Odisha’s Sambalpur district, suspecting them to be Bangladeshi nationals who had infiltrated into India during the ongoing crisis in their neighboring country. The individuals were later released after police confirmed that they were not from Bangladesh. It was verified that the 34 individuals were originally from the Murshidabad area in West Bengal and had been working at the construction site in the Budharaja area of the western Odisha town for a few months. The police found nothing suspicious and therefore released the individuals.

In a similar incident in Basudevpur area of Bhadrak district, several residents rounded up seven other persons, suspecting them to be infiltrators, and handed them over to the local police. The police stated that they are still verifying the identity of these seven individuals and will take action accordingly.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee made a phone call to her Odisha counterpart Mohan Charan Majhi and requested him to look into the alleged incidents of assault on laborers from her state in Odisha.
“Several people from West Bengal have gone to Odisha to work. There are reports that they are being beaten up and tortured by the locals, on suspicion that they are from Bangladesh. The West Bengal CM spoke to her Odisha counterpart and requested him to look into the matter at the earliest,” the official said.

Banerjee also urged the labourers to return to West Bengal as soon as possible, and grab opportunities available in their own state.

When questioned, BJP Sambalpur unit president Girish Patel stated that they handed over 34 individuals to the police after they failed to provide satisfactory details about their identity, address, and parent's names during questioning. Patel alleged that many Bangladeshi nationals, pretending to be natives of Murshidabad district in West Bengal, illegally enter and reside across Sambalpur and then settle there.

Patel also claimed that the 34 individuals possessed fake Aadhaar cards and could not provide proper information about their parents and native places. Therefore, they were handed over to the police, and Patel mentioned that they would continue to do so.

Odisha, which has a 480 km long coastline, has already alerted the coastal districts of Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Bhadrak, and Balasore, among others, to prevent the infiltration of Bangladeshi nationals. During a meeting with various agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, Indian Navy, and Coast Guard, the state government directed officials to secure its coasts.

According to the Central government’s refugee resettlement policy, as many as 1,57,432 Bangladeshi settlers have been rehabilitated in 11 districts of the state, with over 80 per cent of them in Malkangiri and Nabarangpur districts as Indian citizens. Official data also showed that there are as many as 3,740 Bangladeshi infiltrators in Odisha, in districts such as Kendrapada, Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Balasore, and Khurda.