The alleged incident took place on September 24 when the two CISF aspirants had appeared for a physical test for the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) recruitment in Siliguri.
In a purported video of the incident that went viral, the two aspirants are forced to hold their ears; and do squats and sit-ups as a group of men ask them to produce their domicile certificates.
In the purported video, the miscreants are heard accusing the two men from Bihar of forging their domicile certificates to get jobs in Central forces, thereby depriving people born and living in the state.
Even as the aspirants are seen trying to explain that they were assigned an examination centre in the area, the heckling continues with the miscreants forcing them to do sit-ups and verbally harassing them for “not being able to understand Bengali”.
The authenticity of the video has not been independently verified.
RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav called West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, seeking action in the case. The Bihar Police also wrote to their West Bengal counterpart, seeking additional security for examinees from Bihar.
On Thursday, Siliguri Metropolitan Police posted on X that they have arrested two persons — Rajat Bhattacharya and Girdhari Roy — who falsely claimed to be Intelligence Bureau officials. Bhattacharya and Roy, residents of Siliguri, have been booked for criminal trespass, harassment, intimidation, assault, impersonating a public servant, said police.
The two were remanded to police custody for two days.
“Investigations are underway,” said DCP (Siliguri) Biswachand Thakur.
Following his arrest, Rajat Bhattacharya said, “I didn’t say that I am from IB. It was someone else in the crowd.
There are three centres where these examinations are being conducted. We had information that even in the past many candidates from Bihar and UP come and take exams from here by faking domicile certificates. They kill job opportunities for the people of West Bengal. We confronted them and wanted to hand them over to the police but before that the owner of the house helped them leave the place.”
In a video message, Garga Chatterjee of Bangla Pokkho defended the two arrested men, claiming that the two youths from Bihar were in possession of “fake domicile certificates”.
Chatterjee claimed that a racket has been at work for the past three years to issue fake domicile certificates of West Bengal to youths from outside the state, thus depriving bonafide residents to apply for jobs in central forces like BSF, CRPF and CISF.
Stating that the incident took place in Siliguri on Wednesday, Chatterjee claimed that those locals who went to verify the documents of the youths did not heckle them and only asked them to show their documents but the youths continued to argue.
Meanwhile, the incident snowballed into a political storm.
RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister Lalu Yadav called West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, seeking action in the case. The Bihar Police also wrote to their West Bengal counterpart, seeking additional security for examinees from Bihar.
NDA leaders from Bihar denounced the incident and demanded immediate action from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
BJP MP and minister Shandilya Giriraj Singh said, “Red carpet for Rohingya Muslims in West Bengal and Bihar kids beaten up for taking exams? Are these children not part of India?”
Asserting that candidates from other states have always been welcome in West Bengal, TMC leader Kunal Ghosh said “if there was a stray local incident”, the party will look into it.
Ghosh said West Bengal believes in the democratic rights of every citizen of the country and will never allow harassment of anyone. “Our government welcomes everyone. There is nothing like that (harassment of prospective candidates), there should not be any such thing for any Indian,” the former Rajya Sabha MP said.
Hitting out at the BJP, Ghosh said: “What about reports of migrant workers from West Bengal facing harassment in BJP-ruled states? The TMC has not exploited these issues for political gain. We believe India belongs to every citizen who can go anywhere in the country,” he added.
— With PTI Inputs
Click here to join The Indian Express on WhatsApp and get latest news and updates