Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday spoke to her Odisha counterpart Mohan Charan Majhi and urged him to look into the alleged incidents of violence against labourers from the state working there.

A source in Bengal’s ruling dispensation said that Bengali-speaking migrant workers have been attacked, tortured and harassed in many parts of Odisha on the suspicion of being Bangladeshi nationals in the wake of the crisis in the neighbouring country.

Many migrant workers in Odisha, which elected a BJP-led government in June, said they were not spared by the attackers even after showing their Indian identity documents. They claimed that the torture was triggered by the turbulence in the wake of the fall of the Sheikh Hasina government in Bangladesh.

“The reports of such torture started coming in over the last week. The trend of torturing Bengal’s migrant workers has become alarming. Our chief minister, who is concerned about the development, already intervened and called up her Odisha counterpart. We are in touch with the migrant workers currently in Odisha and have opened a helpline number for those who want to return home,” said Samirul Islam, chairperson of the West Bengal Migrant Workers’ Welfare Board.

“Every citizen of India has the right to work in any part of the country. Unfortunately, those from Bengal are facing such unprecedented brutalities in Odisha,” Islam, who is also a Trinamul Congress Rajya Sabha member, said.

A source said that out of the 22 lakh migrant workers registered on the state government portal, around 90,000 work in Kendrapara, Dhenkanal and Jharsuguda in Odisha.

The majority of the migrant workers are construction labourers and hawkers who sell items such as utensils, toys and clothes door-to-door.

Hundreds of migrant workers have already started fleeing Odisha, where they had been working for the past 10-12 years.

A source said Mamata purportedly informed Majhi about the degree of torture faced by the migrant workers and how they were being attacked on the roads. “She asked Majhi to take steps to stop the torture of Bengal migrants and to assist those who are in severe crisis in various vulnerable areas in returning home. She also instructed state government officials to arrange the return of migrant workers in crisis along with their families,” said the source.

Multiple migrant workers in Odisha told this newspaper that vigilantes, suspected to be affiliated with the saffron ecosystem, have been stopping them on the roads and checking their identities. They claimed once they speak Bengali, the goons tag them as Bangladeshis and start torturing them.

“The situation is so bad that I can’t even go out of my home to buy food. They refuse to believe that we are Indians. I plan to leave the area after midnight,” said Monirul Islam, a migrant worker from Malda’s Baishnabnagar. Islam has been hawking steel furniture in Dhenkanal for 12 years.

Another construction worker from Murshidabad’s Samserganj claimed that vigilantes ransacked his bike on Sunday. “They threatened me with dire consequences if I didn’t leave Odisha. We have never faced such a situation before,” said Sahil Sheikh, who lives in Odisha’s Jharsuguda.