Verification drive targeting minority, CM needs to act: Congress Nuh MLA

Training guns at “double engine” government in Haryana senior Congress leader and Nuh MLA Aftab Ahmed has called the ongoing Bangladeshi immigrant verification drive in the state an attack on the minority communities from Bengal and Assam.

Ahmed warned of a severe hit to Gurugram’s image as a secular global city if the police’s drive continues. Ahmed, who has moved to the state DGP against alleged unfair treatment of migrants by Gurugram and Faridabad police, said that people who kept the cities moving were being unfairly targeted and harassed under the pretext of identifying illegal Rohingya and Bangladeshi immigrants.

“Look at the videos. They are being treated worse than animals. Pulled, thrashed, thrown into vehicles, and held for days together? Why? When somebody has all valid documents like an Aadhar card, then why target them? Or does this government not value its own identification? The sad part is that people who have left their native states and are doing menial jobs, cleaning the city, are being targeted. We have approached the state DGP to rein in their cops, or we will take to the streets,” said Ahmed.

It may be noted that Gurugram police, which has suspended the ‘detention’ of suspects, claimed that nobody has been harassed and that the videos being circulated to create panic are fake and old.

“We are acting as per law and ensuring nobody is harassed. There is not even a single instance of the same,” said an official spokesperson of Gurugram police.

Ahmed said that nobody in Haryana thought that the things they heard happen in Maharashtra would happen there.

“People are being singled out on the basis of religion and language. While one person from the same area of Bengal, speaking the same language, and having the same documents is spared for being of the majority faith, the minority one is being harassed.

The CM needs to step in and stop this. Haryana is not Maharashtra, and we will not let it become one,” added Ahmed.

He said that hundreds of minority migrants were reaching out to them for help and were desperate to leave the city forever. Ahmed has asked the CM to visit areas like South City, where Bengali families living for 20 years have fled.