Nine migrant labourers from West Bengal were detained by Kondagaon police in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, allegedly because they had been staying in the district for several days without submitting documents to the local police.
While a habeas corpus petition was filed on Monday before the Chhattisgarh High Court, the Kondagaon police told The Indian Express that the labourers had been freed on Monday evening following a letter given to them by the district administration.
“They were not arrested. They were detained on suspicion because when they came to Kondagaon around a month ago, neither they nor their contractor produced proper documents to the police station. They were detained and sent to jail but were released on Monday,” Kondagaon Superintendent of Police Akshay Kumar said. The action was taken under BNSS section 128 (security for good behaviour from suspected persons).
The labourers are from the constituency of Krishna Nagar MP Mahua Moitra in West Bengal. She alleged it was a case of “kidnapping by the Chhattisgarh government and police”.
“Nine people from my constituency were working as masons at a private school on a construction site in Albedapada in Kondagaon district. On July 12, police came to the site where they were staying and picked them up. All of them had valid documents. Their phones are switched off. We have got information from their family members that they have been put in Jagdalpur jail in the neighbouring (Bastar) district,” she alleged.
“These are nine bona fide workers who had gone with a contractor with proper documentation. The government of West Bengal and families are not informed. We have not got a copy of the detention order or a hearing; they had no access to a lawyer or a phone call. They say they have been released, but there is no mobile phone contact,” she alleged.
