'Have been swamped since helpline went live, got multiple calls': After mass detention outside Bengal, demand for Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) soars

KOLKATA: Bengal Police has been flooded with online Police Clearance Certificate (PCC) applications following reports of mass detention of Bengali-speaking migrants in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Haryana, Delhi and UP.

With cops in these states refusing to accept Aadhaar, EPIC and in some cases even birth certificates as valid citizenship proof, PCCs issued by Bengal Police have come to the rescue of workers herded into detention camps on suspicion of being Bangladeshis.More than 1,000 Bengali migrants — close to 700 in just Odisha and Haryana — have now been freed after their PCCs reached the respective state police force over the past few days.

Only 20-odd individuals are still in detention, an officer said.

According to cops, PCC pendency figures used to average around 14,000-15,000 in six districts with the highest outbound migration — Malda, Murshidabad, South and North Dinajpur, Nadia and Birbhum. Now the figure has doubled. “People, mostly poor migrants who want to work in other states, are all applying for PCCs,” an officer said.Earlier, PCCs were issued by the state Intelligence Branch (IB) but now local police stations have stepped in to fast-track physical verifications.

On Friday, Bengal police announced a WhatsApp number — 9147727666 — urging residents facing police harassment in other states to drop a message with all necessary information.“We have been swamped with calls since Friday night. While we said only text messages will be entertained, we received multiple calls. We had to put extra men on duty. Only a couple were about detention, the rest were queries on documents required to avoid detention and ways to contact the Bengal administration in emergency. As an SOP, we have asked all police districts to complete PCC queries from people in other states within 48-72 hours. All communication should be from official mails of district SPs’ office, police stations and DMs’ office. Even a single slip can affect our credibility,” said a senior state official.PCCs, which are mostly required for pre-job screenings and immigration, allows cops to verify if a person has criminal antecedent and whether the place of residence cited is genuine.

During the mass detention of 444 Bengali-speaking workers in Odisha, Bengal cops had pulled all stops to physically verify addresses and backgrounds of all of them and send detailed reports to Odisha police to secure their release. The same was done to get 250 people freed in Haryana.Bengal Migrant Welfare Board chairperson and Rajya Sabha MP Samirul Islam said, “We live in a country where EPIC, Aadhar, birth certificates, even land deeds hold no value. The work to release all detainees has not been completed, especially those illegally pushed into Bangladesh. How can the poor fight extra-legal measures?” The migrant welfare board is also in the process of issuing identity cards, setting up emergency helplines, to help workers outside Bengal.