Despite multiple promises by local politicians, even after a month of anxious waiting, most of the Muslim staffers of Bengaluru’s south zone COVID war room who were detained without evidence after being communally targeted by BJP leader Tejasvi Surya, have not been given their jobs back.
“Even if your company does not employ you, I will. I will pay your salary,” Congress MLA BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan had told the Muslim staffers.
“They are paying Rs 13,000, I will employ you for a salary of Rs 15,000 if they don’t employ you,” he had decisively added on May 7 while in a press conference, slamming MP Tejaswi Surya’s move.
“I will employ them, we have absolutely no need of you,” he had said, addressing Surya.
While assuring that the Muslim staffers will be given back their jobs, JDS’ Imran Arif Pasha had on May 6 said, “People have chosen us so that we work for them and give them their rights irrespective of whether we are in power or not, I will stand up for my community and our rights even if it costs my life.”
Over a month later, most of the staffers remain unemployed. Despite multiple attempts to reach the politicians for over a week, there has been no response.
BBMP authorities and the recruitment firm Crystal Infosystems maintain that they cannot be reinstated because of lack of vacancy due to a fall in the number of cases and hence reduction of staff in COVID war rooms and other COVID related jobs.
IAS Tulasi Maddineni told The Cognate, “There is no vacancy, the staff in the war room have come down to 65 from 212.”
The politicians who promised to make sure they are employed have only followed up with the authorities.
“We spoke to the commissioner and demanded that they be returned their jobs, but he said there is no vacancy.” Khan’s aide Farooq told The Cognate.
When asked if they are planning to take any steps as the staffers are still unemployed, he said “the lockdown is coming to an end, we will try and get them a job”, adding that unemployment has become an issue due to the pandemic. MLA Zameer Khan had on May 7, the day of the press conference, given the staffers Rs 5000 each.
Contrary to earlier reports, dating back to May 10 claiming that the BBMP had reinstated all the staffers, only one of them was reinstated at the south zone war room.
On May 26th, most of them got a call saying they were allotted jobs at various constituencies near their residence. However, on visiting the office, they were told to return home. “They told me to go back home saying the manager would call me, but nobody called”, one of them recounts.
Around 4 of the Muslim staffers have resigned from their contractual employment.
“We were initially hesitant to even re-join as we were heartbroken over what had happened. Later we decided that we need to step up and face them, after all, we hadn’t done anything wrong,” he adds.
One of the staffers has been reinstated after over a month at the East Zone war room, 12km away from where he lives. To cover travel costs, he also works as a deliveryman at Swiggy, Newslaundry reported.
Some of them have been working at the South zone war room for 10 months, and others had joined in April this year after working for 6 months during the first wave of the pandemic.
On May 5, Tejaswi Surya, MP from Bangalore South, along with three legislators from his party, stormed into the war room and read out the names of 16 staffers, all Muslim. He alleged that they were involved in a bed allocation scam.
After the incident, the BBMP promptly removed the 16 Muslim staffers from their posts, and another Muslim staffer who hadn’t been named by Surya, and told them they wouldn’t be paid until their suspension was over. The staffers were taken for questioning by the police but, having found no evidence of wrongdoing, they were let off.
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Rushda Fathima Khan is the Staff Reporter for The Cognate.
