Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday alleged that 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. He called it a hate crime.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said a youth was hunted, tortured and murdered. (ANI)”I am shocked, outraged and sickened by the brutal killing of Sukhen Mahato, a 24-year-old migrant laborer from Bandwan, Purulia, the sole breadwinner of his family in Pune, Maharashtra,” Banerjee wrote on X.
“This is nothing short of a hate crime. A young man has been hunted, tortured and killed for his language, his identity, his roots. This is a direct consequence of a climate where xenophobia is weaponised, and the innocent are targeted.”
The ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) shared a picture of a man lying on the ground and said the deceased belonged to the Kurmi community.
Banerjee demanded immediate arrest of the culprits and exemplary punishment. “And to Sukhen’s family, Bengal stands with you in this time of unimaginable grief. No effort will be spared to ensure justice.”
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The TMC government moved a resolution in the state assembly last year condemning the detention of Bengali-speaking migrant workers in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states. Some of them, including a pregnant Muslim woman and her minor son from Birbhum district, were identified as undocumented migrants and sent to Bangladesh, and later brought back.
In October 2025, Banerjee announced a resettlement scheme for migrant workers returning from BJP-ruled states. The TMC has made it an issue in the run-up to the assembly elections in the state this year.
