Hot on the heels of the ‘lovejihad’ murder in Rajasthan, the body of another labourer hailing from Chanchal in Malda district was found in his rented room at the Narikana area under the Shastrinagar police station in Jaipur, Rajasthan, on Tuesday. Saker Ali, 32, had been living in Jaipur for the past four years with another youth from his village who, however, recently returned home.

It may be mentioned here that a labourer, Affarajul Khan, from Kaliachak in Malda, was brutally killed and burnt at Rajsamand in Rajasthan on 5 December, 2017, in a case that hit headlines as the ‘Lovejihad’ murder. Ali’s body had blood stains on the face and nose, while there were some burn injuries on his body, which prompted family members to claim it a murder.

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The body has been sent for post-mortem and the process to send it back to Malda has been started by the Rajasthan police, it is learnt. The incident has once again brought to the fore the issue of security of migrant labourers going to other states for work. According to sources, the deceased lived in flat No-7 owned by one Latif, while police there detained some locals, including the flat owner and his son, immediately after the body was recovered.

“We have contacted Rajasthan police and theyhave already filed a case of unnatural death there and sent the body for post-mortem. No one has, however, filed any complaint with the police, neither there in Rajasthan nor here till now,” Inspectorin- charge of the Chanchal police station, Sukumar Misra, said. According to Ali’s parents, Mohammad Giasuddin and Obaida Bibi, Ali had been living separately from his wife and daughter who are living in Mumbai for the past four years and that he had been in a state of “mental agony,” owing to this.

Manjur Alam, the uncle of the deceased and a local leader of the CPIM, said, “We do not know what happened there, but it seems that he had been murdered and then miscreants tried to set him on fire. It is up to the police now to find out the truth which we also want to know desperately.” “Though he had not come home for the last three years, he used to call us,” Obaida Bibi said as she cried.

North Malda MP, Mausam Noor (SNS photo) , and district secretary of the CPIM, Ambar Mitra, visited the bereaved family th is afternoon. Both the leaders demanded security for labourers from the state who go to work in other states.