Jahangiripuri’s residents cry foul at immigrant tag

We are ready to show documents, say locals, whose families moved in cities in West Bengal and U.P.

In the several bylanes of Jahangirpuri’s Muslim-majority C-Block, residents who mostly hail from West Bengal said they are ready to show their identity documents to authorities and claimed in unison that “we are legal residents and not from Bangladesh or Rohingya Muslims”.

The residents said the narrative being “peddled by some politicians” that the area only consists of those who have illegally entered the country from Bangladesh or Rohingya Muslims fleeing Myanmar was false and that most of their grandparents, who had legally settled in the area, were from cities in West Bengal like Haldia, Howrah and Medinipur, while some were from U.P. or Bihar.

Shakir, 19, whose brother Zakir was arrested by police for his alleged role in Saturday’s communal clash, said that if the authorities try to “brand them as infiltrators”, he and his family had all the valid documents to prove that they legally came here from West Bengal’s Haldia.

“The debate that this place is a Muslim ghetto and all of them are from Bangladesh or are Rohingya Muslims is bogus… why did they only rake up the issue after the communal clash? How have we managed to live here for all these years illegally right under the government’s nose?” Shakir asked.

He claimed that his brother was picked up by police a day after the clashes “even though he was innocent”.

“On the day of the violence, he (brother) only went out to see what was happening in the melee…he didn’t have any role in the clash, he has been arrested on baseless charges,” Shakir told The Hindu.

For 50-year-old Shamsher, the issue of “illegal immigrants” is something he is not bothered about as it has been created by a “select few” to ruin Jahangirpuri’s communal harmony.