The police have urged planters, who have employed workers from Assam, to share information about their whereabouts and a copy of their identity proof with the local police.
Many from Assam have been working in coffee plantations of Sakleshpur, Belur and Alur taluks in Hassan in the last five years. Recent reports in a section of the media and complaints by some organisations have prompted the local police to call planters for a meeting and ask them to furnish documents of those employed by them.
M.S. Bullakkanavar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, held a meeting with planters in Sakleshpur recently.
As many as 38 planters from Alur and Sakleshpur taluks attended the meeting. “There was a complaint by Dharaneesh, a Bajrang Dal leader, alleging that many illegal migrants from Bangladesh were working in the coffee plantations. Besides, there were media reports suggesting illegal migrants might be working here,” he told The Hindu .
However, the police have not got any information about Bangladeshi migrants working in the plantations. Workers from Assam come with their families and stay put in houses provided by estate owners.
They visit their native places occasionally and do not miss a visit during the elections. During the recent Assam Assembly elections, they travelled to their native places to vote.
Among the planters, those in Kodagu were the first to get in touch with the workers in Assam. The scarcity of local labourers had forced planters to employ workers from Assam, Odisha and other states. B.S. Jairam, president of Karnataka Growers’ Federation, said, “We have already informed our members to handover a copy of the workers’ documents to the taluk administration. When hiring employees from a different State, we have to be careful.”
