Mandya (Karnataka), Aug.31 (ANI): Police in Mandya, Karnataka, have detained nine persons, said to be affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, for coercively evicting 98 labourers from a train.
The ABVP members are said to have terrorised the labourers hailing from West Bengal, Orissa, Rajasthan, Bihar and other states for nearly two hours before dragging them off the Yeshwantpur-Kannur Express train, claiming they were "illegal Bangladeshis."
The labourers were heading towards Mangalore, and none of the passengers came to their assistance, as they were being harassed and assaulted.
The labourers said they were going to coastal Mangalore to seek jobs at construction sites, and encountered the ABVP activists on the train who were returning from a convention in Bangalore.
According to a report in The Hindu newspaper, 66 of the 98 workers were from West Bengal.
One of them said that the ABVP activists questioned them about their origin, places of stay, and even raised slogans against Bangladeshi migrants. The labourers said that they were never given an opportunity to explain.
Before their arrest in Mandya, the ABVP activists dragged all the labourers out of the train and kicked and punched them publicly.
Government Railway Police Deputy Superintendent of Police Meer Arif Ali said the police would book criminal cases against the ABVP activists. (ANI)
|
|
Comments:
