Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday alleged a 24-year-old migrant worker from West Bengal’s Purulia district was murdered in Maharashtra’s Pune on Tuesday because he was a Bengali. She called it a hate crime.
“I am shaken, enraged, and sickened beyond words by the barbaric murder of Sukhen Mahato, a 24-year-old migrant worker from Bandwan in Purulia, the sole earning member of his family, in Pune, Maharashtra,” Banerjee wrote on X.
“This is nothing short of a hate crime. A young man was hunted, tortured, and murdered for his language, his identity, his roots. This is the direct consequence of a climate where xenophobia is weaponised, and innocents are turned into targets.”
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) shared a photo of a man lying on the ground and said the victim was a member of the Kurmi community.
Banerjee demanded immediate arrest and exemplary punishment for the perpetrators. “And to Sukhen’s family, I say that Bengal stands with you in this hour of unimaginable grief. No effort will be spared to secure justice.”
The TMC government moved a motion in the state assembly last year condemning the detention of Bengali-speaking migrant workers across Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states. Some of them, including a pregnant Muslim woman and her minor son from Birbhum district, were branded as undocumented immigrants and sent to Bangladesh, and subsequently brought back.
In October 2025, Banerjee announced a rehabilitation scheme for migrant workers returning from BJP-ruled states. The TMC has made this an issue in the run-up to the assembly polls in the state this year.
www.hindustantimes.com
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