Another incident of violence against migrants from Bihar reported after a civil engineer and six plumbers from Madhubani district were attacked by locals in Gujarat on Monday night. Police claims that the attack has no connection with the origin of the victims’ and has arrested one of the three accused identified as Keyur Parmar.
Even though the state government and the police claims that the hate crime against migrant workers have come to an end, the estranged relationship between the people of Gujarat and Bihari migrants in Gujarat doesn’t seem to stop. As one after another, incidences of violence against migrants from Bihar are reported, the animosity continues to rise instead of settling down.
One of the victims, Shatrughan Sinha is a Civil engineer and was working at a construction site of a primary school of Vadodara Municipal Corporation with six other plumbers on Monday. They were wearing lungi which was objected by Parmar and others. Parmar along with two other Sama residents came closer and questioned them about their attire.
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This led to an argument which turned into a tussle. As a result seven people got minutely injured and police was called to the spot. The attackers also threatened the migrant workers to leave Gujarat and set Yadav’s motor-bike and plastic chairs on fire.
“It is difficult to say what could be the reason for attack. They told the engineer and the workers that they have problem because they were wearing ‘Lungi’ which is very strange. The attackers also threatened some 30 to 40 workers who were sleeping on first floor of the under-construction building,” said the contractor Mayur Matel.
“Since few days, locals had been warning them against sitting indecently wearing ‘lungi’ but they did not pay heed. On Monday night, the locals again argued with the migrants and clashed with them. Our investigations revealed that it was not a hate crime against migrants,” said Police Commissioner Anupam Singh Gahlaut.
The accused also the workers were asked to keep their mouth shut and leave from the site or else they would also be set on fire just like the bike, said Patel.
