KOLKATA: The Calcutta High Court on Thursday directed the West Bengal Chief Secretary to appoint a nodal officer to get in touch with the authorities in Odisha and take necessary steps to ensure release of Bengali speaking migrant workers from the state who were detained there.
A division bench of Justice Tapabrata Chakraborty and Justice Reetobroto Mitra of the Calcutta High Court also directed the West Bengal Government to act immediately and submit a report to the court in this regard on Monday.
There have been allegations of Bengali speaking migrant workers from West Bengal being detained in Odisha. The Calcutta High Court has sought answers to several questions in this case.
The bench asked, why were Bengali migrant workers detained? On what basis were they detained? Has any FIR been filed? What action has been taken against those migrants after their detention? Where are they now?
The High Court has directed the West Bengal Chief Secretary Manoj Pant to send these questions of the court to the Chief Secretary of Odisha. The bench will take its next decision after seeing his reply.
Counsel for petitioner Razzak Sheikh from Hariharpara in Murshidabad submitted to the bench that his son Samiur Islam went to Odisha in search of a job. The counsel submitted that the Bengali speaking person was held up by the Odisha Police during a special identification drive and arrested on June 30, 2025.
“The arrested person has not been produced in court since then. There was no arrest memo issued, and the family of the person in custody was not informed about the arrest. This is nothing but illegal detention,” the counsel submitted.
He also said that the family was not even aware in which correctional home Islam was in custody. The counsel prayed for compensation of the victim by the Odisha Government and also urged for disciplinary action against the authorities who made the ‘illegal arrest’.
The counsel submitted that a similar prayer by another victim Rakibul Islam was pending and prayers by other two would come up before the bench on Friday.
Citing newspaper reports, senior counsel Kalyan Banerjee submitted that 200 Bengali speaking people from West Bengal and some others in Assam had been arrested because of their mother tongue. “This has become a serious issue,” he added.
Advocate Generatel Kishore Datta representing the West Bengal Government submitted that there was a problem with the identity and the place of residence of the person arrested. “The state will give all support to the person regarding his identity,” he said.
Datta also urged the division bench to appoint a nodal officer who would coordinate with the Odisha Government and sort out the problem.
Allegedly, several migrant workers from West Bengal were detained in Odisha. Some of them are residents of Malda, some of them are residents of Murshidabad, and some of them are residents of Birbhum. The matter came to light only after their families could not contact them for several days. The West Bengal Chief Secretary had also written a letter to his counterpart in Odisha in this regard.
