Police checked identity of 5000 migrant workers in Karnataka. Image credit: The New Indian Express
Representational image

Police on Thursday carried out an identity verification exercise and took thousands of migrant workers from Assam and West Bengal to three processing centres in Kodagu district of Karnataka.

The workers, who are mostly employed in coffee estates across the district, were taken to centres in Madikeri, Virajpet and Kushalnagar towns.

The police conducted both offline and online identity verification of the workers.

Kodagu district police instructed the coffee planters to bring the migrant workers with their documents to the police stations on Thursday morning.

From there the workers were taken to the three processing centres.

The district police were acting on the orders of Kodagu Superintendent of Police Suman D Pannekar and the verification process continued till the evening.

The workers were asked to produce various proofs of identity like Aadhaar card, PAN card and voter IDs.

Sources informed that out of 5000 workers who went through the verification process, 500 of them did not possess the required documents.

Their employers were asked to collect their original documents and the police also instructed the owners to not send back these unverified workers.

When inquired if the verification process was related to NRC or CAA, the SP denied it and said there was no government order as such.

“The verification process is being conducted by Kodagu police themselves. It is being done to control the crime rate in the district,” the SP said.