"Around 5,000 Migrant Workers Lined up for "Documentation Verification" in Karntaka's Kodagu", 24 January 2020

In an incident that is bound to fuel fear and insecurity among people working outside their states, around 5,000 migrant workers from Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan among others, were rounded up by the police in Karnataka’s Kodagu district after a pro-Hindutva outfit alleged that they were “illegal Bangladeshi immigrants.” Most of the migrants work in coffee plantations in the district.

The Superintendent of Police (SP) of Kodagu...had issued an order to all police stations in Kodagu, about 250 kilometres from state capital Bengaluru, to conduct a document-verification drive...

...The document verification drive in BJP-ruled Karnataka comes close on the heels of the razing down of an entire settlement of migrants on the outskirts of Bengaluru by the municipal corporation during an unauthorised demolition drive to evict ‘illegal immigrants”. This too followed a video tweeted by a BJP MLA.

...The two incidents in Karnataka, targeting migrant workers, mostly daily wagers, comes amid widespread protests across the country against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and proposed nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the National Population Register (NPR).