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Protest against Rajasthan police

JAIPUR: Civil rights activists here on Saturday registered a strong protest against the Rajasthan police harassing poor Muslim migrants from West Bengal living on the outskirts of Jaipur on the pretext of identifying Bangladeshi infiltrators in the aftermath of the May 13 serial blasts that claimed 66 lives. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), releasing the report of its investigation into the police crackdown, described the Bengali migrants as “terror scapegoats” with Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami (HuJI) emerging as the prime suspect. The State Government has also declared that it would cleanse the city of the “breeding ground of terror.” PUCL State secretary Kavita Srivastava said the Rajasthan authorities were infringing upon the human rights of Bengali migrants in the name of their supposed identity as Bangladeshi infiltrators and suspicious character. Even the migrant workers from U.P. and Bihar have become suspects in the eyes of law enforcement agencies. The PUCL report pointed out that the crackdown on Bengalis in Jaipur began the day after the blasts and hundreds of them had been rounded up so far, while 116 persons were sent to judicial custody.

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