Four Bengal workers, detained on Bangladeshi suspicion, released from Chhattisgarh
Four migrant workers from West Bengal have been released from a Chhattisgarh detention center after the Calcutta High Court intervened. The court questioned the authority of local police to determine citizenship while legal appeals regarding electoral roll deletions were still pending.
Why it matters
The case highlights significant legal tensions regarding citizenship verification processes and the potential for administrative overreach in migrant worker detention.
After the Calcutta High Court’s intervention, Chhattisgarh Police have released the four migrant workers from West Bengal, who had been detained for over a month on suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals.
On Monday (October 5, 2026), the Calcutta HC questioned the Foreigners Registration Officer (FRO), who is also the Superintendent of Police, Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, over the authority’s move to determine the citizenship of four men from Murshidabad while their appeals against deletion of their names from the electoral roll during the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) are pending before the appellate tribunal.
It also rapped the Chhattisgarh State for its ‘double standard’. It said that the situation was ‘contradictory’. “If the authorities were saying that some persons were not Indian citizens, then what would the appellate authority (tribunal) do?” questioned Justice Krishna Rao.
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