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Gurugram Police Detain Bengali Speakers Without Clear Procedures, Fueling Exodus

Police held dozens of Bengali speakers for up to five days in improvised community centres without any published standard operating procedure.

Safeera (left) and Am Bano (right) inside a jhuggi in Sector 70 after work | Samridhi Tewari, ThePrint

Overview

  • Authorities screened 350 to 400 individuals under a Home Ministry directive, confirming only ten as Bangladeshi nationals.
  • Plainclothes officers in unmarked vehicles have been detaining people based solely on speaking Bengali.
  • Detainees spent two to five days in converted community centres with no clear legal redress or transparency.
  • Fear of arbitrary detentions has sparked a silent exodus of Bengali-speaking workers, causing domestic service shortages.
  • Human rights advocates warn that linguistic profiling conflates dialect with nationality and violates due process.