A group of eight migrant workers from Bengal was allegedly brutally attacked and driven out of a bread factory in Chhattisgarh’s Surajpur district by Bajrang Dal members. The eight workers belong to Jangalmahal’s Purulia district in West Bengal.The workers, belonging to Chepri village in Purulia district, were subjected to severe violence, after they asked the factory owner for fair wages.Following the attack, four of the workers – Sheikh Jasim, Sheikh Aslam, Sheikh Babi, and Sheikh Julfukar – managed to return home to Purulia, while the remaining four, Sheikh Ismail, Sheikh Minar, Arbaz Kazi and Sheikh Sahil, all of whom are minors, are still in a government shelter home in Surajpur. The district police administration of Purulia is trying to bring these workers back to their families.Fear among the villagersAfter the brutal assault, a shadow of fear has fallen over the village as most families in Chepri have members working elsewhere as migrant labour. Questions of migrant workers’ safety, especially those who speak Bengali, are being raised in light of recent attacks in Odisha, Delhi, Rajasthan and Haryana.The workers who returned from Chhattisgarh after the assault no longer want to leave home for work. However, there is no work available locally either, leaving the eight families in a lurch.Around 300 Muslim families reside in Chepri village, situated approximately 256 kms from Kolkata.“Most of the people in our village do not own any cultivated land. The few who have small plots of land cannot sustain their families with it. As a result, for the past 15 years, youth and middle aged men from almost every family have been migrating to other states to work as migrant laborers. It has increased further in the last four years” said Sheikh Nazir Uddin, elderly resident of the village.According to Sheikh Abu Talim, another resident of Chepri, people from the village travel elsewhere for work mostly find employment in bread bakeries across different regions of the country.The assaultThe alleged assault took place on January 4 at Jaydurga Bakery in Patrapara area of Surajpur district in Chhattisgarh.Sheikh Jasim, who was among those attacked at the bakery, had been working there for three months before he brought the seven other workers with him. “The factory owner, Rakesh Jindal, told me that seven more workers were needed due to higher production during the winter season. Following his instruction, I brought the remaining seven from the village” said Sheikh Jasim. He also mentioned that about six sacks (3 quintals) flour were processed at the bakery every day and production kept increasing in the winter.After December 25, when production decreased slightly, the owner said he did not want to retain the workers anymore. “We used to earn a monthly wage of 7,000-10,000 rupees working there. The owner told us ‘ou can go home; we do not need [extra workers] anymore,” Sheikh Aslam told The Wire.He further said that the workers asked the owner why he wasn’t paying them the promised amount. “Why are you paying us so little? When we were hired, you had promised higher wages, you must pay us that amount,” the workers told the owner, Aslam said.The owner refused to listen to the workers and asked them to leave by January 4, Sheikh Babi, another affected worker said.All four workers who returned after the attack said that the owner had told them that he will settle all dues by Sunday afternoon. “We realized that there was nothing more we could do,” said Sheikh Julfukar.The workers stated that following the owner’s instructions, a gang of Bajrang Dal goons entered the bakery on Sunday afternoon. They took away the workers’ mobile phones before attacking them, they said.The workers shuddered as they recalled the incident. Sheikh Jasim said that the owner was present inside the factory when the Bajrang Dal goons entered. They shouted ‘ Jai Shri Ram’ and immediately lunged at us, Jasim said.“We asked them why they were attacking us and what crime we had committed,” Jasim recalled. “They ( Bajrang Dal goons) said we were Bangladeshis. We showed them our Aadhar cards, but they threw them aside and continued to beat us brutally. The owner did not intervene. They threatened us saying that we had to leave immediately or they would kill us.”Jasim said even though the police arrived a short while after the attack began, they did not intervene. E“We were struck so hard that we fell to the ground. Eventually, the police rescued us and took all eight of us to the Surajpur police station,” the workers said.Sheikh Iqbal, a social worker and a resident of Chepri village said, “After learning about the incident, we contacted the Muffasal police station in Purulia. The district police sent all documents about these eight individuals to Surajpur police station.”“After the Purulia police sent all information about us, four of us were released from Surajpur police station on January 6. We returned home. The remaining four were taken to a government shelter home. The owner did not pay the wages we had earned,” said sheikh Aslam.‘On whose assurance can we go?’Affected workers said that the terror of the January 4 assault still haunts them and they have not been able to forget it. They have now decided that they will not go outside to work anymore. “On whose assurance can we go?” they asked.This incident has had a widespread impact on the village too. Other families are spending their days in deep anxiety, because their family members have also gone outside for work. Their households survive on the money sent by them.There is no certainty that those who have returned will be able to get their names registered under the West Bengal government’s ‘Karmasathi Parijayee’ scheme. There are many complications in registering as migrant workers in this project.The workers of this village said that those who had earlier registered under this scheme in Purulia district or other parts of the state did not receive any financial benefits. The Bengal state government had promised to provide Rs 5,000 to each worker who is enlisted in this scheme. But no one received the money.“On the one hand, they are being attacked for speaking Bengali, on the other, even after returning to their own hometown, they are unable to find any work. As a result, the families of migrant workers are facing severe financial and mental distress” said Ujjal Sarkar, Assistant secretary of the West Bengal Migrant Workers Union in the State.Four migrant workers, who are still staying in a government home in Chhattisgarh, are all below the age of 16. Among them is Sheikh Sahil, who is 14 years old. His widowed mother Sabina Bibi said that her son had gone to work in that bread factory to support the family. There he was beaten and now kept in the home. I want my son and the other three to return home as soon as possible,” she said.Superintendent of Police Purulia, Vaibhav Tiwari, said that efforts are being made to bring back the remaining four as fast as possible.