All six men accused of lynching a West Bengal migrant worker in Odisha’s Sambalpur district have been arrested, police said, while asserting that the killing was not linked to the victim’s identity or nationality.
Six men allegedly stopped a group of migrant workers from West Bengal in Odisha’s Sambalpur district, asked for a bidi and then demanded to check their Aadhaar cards before launching a brutal assault that left one labourer dead and several others injured, police said on Thursday.
Odisha Police said the violence followed a dispute over a bidi late Wednesday night. The workers and the victim’s family, however, told authorities they were attacked after being suspected of being Bangladeshi nationals. All six accused involved in the lynching have been arrested.
According to police, the incident occurred when the victim, identified as Juel Sheikh, and other workers from West Bengal were preparing food at their living place in Sambalpur. A group of six men approached them asking for a bidi. When the workers refused, the men allegedly demanded to see their Aadhaar cards, triggering an altercation that escalated into a scuffle.
Sheikh was hit on the head with a hard object and succumbed to his injuries while undergoing treatment at the Sambalpur hospital.
“The miscreants first asked for bidi from us and then asked me to show our Aadhaar cards. Later, they rammed Juel head against a hard object,” another worker, Majhar Khan, injured in the attack, told news agency PTI.
Nizamuddin Khan claimed the assailants branded them as Bangladeshis before attacking Sheikh and two others. Two of the injured workers have been admitted to hospital and are undergoing treatment.
IGP (Northern Range) Himanshu Kumar Lal said that the murder has nothing to do with whether the “victim was a Bengali or a Bangladeshi”. Another official said that the workers had been living in the area for several years, and they knew the accused persons.
TRINAMOOL BLAMES BJP
Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress blamed the killing on what it called a “sustained campaign against Bengalis” by the BJP, asserting that the incident occurred in a state governed by the saffron party.
“The lynching of a Bengali migrant worker in Sambalpur is the direct outcome of @BJP4India’s sustained campaign against Bengalis. A citizen of India was beaten to death because a mob believed the lie that Bengalis are infiltrators who must constantly prove their right to exist,” the party said in a post on X.
