Imphal, June 18 : Migrant workers, especially those from West Bengal, continued to pull out of Manipur following the killing of four labourers on a university campus near here last week.
An official confirmed that 11 migrants from West Bengal had left the dharamshala relief camp opened by the government and run by the business community here, by bus this morning. With this, the number of Bengali migrants who have left Manipur has gone up to 31. Twenty of them left the camp yesterday.
However, there was no report of any exodus from the Kalibari relief camp.
Bengalis working in and around this city were brought to the dharamshala by police a day after two gunmen shot dead four construction labourers from Bengal on the campus of Central Agricultural University at Eroisemba in Imphal West on June 11 night.
The migrants brought to the camp were working at various places, including Lamphel, Langol and Eroisemba in Imphal West and Utlou in Bishnupur district.
The killings have sparked a fear psychosis among migrants in the state and they have stopped venturing out for work.
“Our collective decision is to reach home. We will go back phase by phase. The exodus will continue tomorrow as well and over the next few days all the Bengalis will go back,” Balaram Paul, a leader of the migrants at the camp, said.
“We want to go together. But we decided to leave in smaller groups because if we go together this may attract attention and create problems. The state government does not object to our going back in phases,” he added.
Binod Mandal, the contractor from Bengal who works at the agriculture university, has made arrangements for the labourers to return.
There are about 170 migrants in the two relief camps — about 100 from Bengal and the rest mostly from Bihar. The workers said they wanted to go back because they felt unsafe in the state. However, they hoped to come back if the situation improved.
The migrants at the camp are also restless with nothing to do for the past four days.
The Okram Ibobi Singh government has posted a police picket at the agricultural university and intensified patrolling in vulnerable areas. But this has failed to instil a sense of security among the migrants.
In addition to government aid, the Kalibari management and the Bengali community here are extending help to run the camps. The Kalibari volunteers cooked for the displaced persons at its relief camp and bore the expenses.
At the dharamshala camp, the food for the campers was being cooked at the nearby Bheirodan High School till yesterday. But with the school reopening today, the inmates opted for food at city hotels. The government provides Rs 60 per person for food each day.