Mamata asks 'tortured' migrant labourers from Bengal to return from other states

PTI, May 06, 2025, Suti (WB) : Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asked migrant labourers from West Bengal to come back and work in the state, amid reports of such workers facing harassment in other states.

    

Banerjee said Chief Secretary Manoj Pant has written to the central government in this regard.

    

"I have heard that migrant labourers from Bengal are being tortured (in other states) if they speak in Bengali. We have received several complaints," she said at a government programme here.

   

"Those who are torturing them, please remember that there are 1.5 crore migrant labourers from other states here in Bengal. We treat them as our brothers and sisters and love them. If we can love them, then why will you torture our men?" the CM said.

Banerjee said she would ask the families of these labourers from Bengal to bring them back to the state, and get them employed under the ‘Karmashree’ scheme.

“There is no need to beg. Come back here and enlist your name in the migrant labourers' list," she said, directing the district magistrate of Murshidabad to look into it.

On Monday, Trinamool Congress MP and chairman of the Bengal Migrant Workers Welfare Board, Samirul Islam, had written to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, urging him to ensure the safety of migrant workers from the state, who have been facing alleged attacks in New Delhi, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Odisha.