BENGALURU: While the Bengaluru City Police have arrested and detained several people on suspicion of being illegal Bangladeshi immigrants as part of their renewed efforts to crack down on migrant workers recently, Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani visited the Thubarahalli migrant workers’ camp where the threat of eviction looms large and another camp where more than 30 settlements were damaged and several, including an eight-month-old baby, were assaulted.
During a protest near Freedom Park along with freedom fighter HS Doreswamy, Mevani said that after listening to the people’s concerns, he will take up the issue with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and highlight the Bengali migrant workers issue on a national level. He also visited the Kariamma Nagar migrant workers’ area.
Although most of the residents claimed to be Assamese and had documents, they were evicted as well, to which Jignesh expressed solidarity and told them that irrespective of where they came from, they were all workers who were exploited and it was their efforts that helped build Bengaluru’s huge buildings and infrastructure.
With the protests against the Citizen (Amendment) Act intensifying in the city, Mevani told TNSE that converting “the protest into an economic struggle, such as improving public health, education and unemployment, can be used to overcome this situation as it creates fear in Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.” “It has been written in history that revolution has its roots in college campuses. The Navnirman Andolan Movement in Gujarat is one example and it was picked up in Bihar and then across the country. Students want to do something creative with new ideas and dogmas regardless of political parties. Modi-Shahs will come and go but only the idea and the Indian constitution will survive,” he added.