For Mainul Haq, nothing sweet was happening in life except the meetha paan he was chewing. He had left his home in Nagaon district in Assam a decade ago in search of a livelihood in Kerala and set up a chaat shop at Perumbavoor, some 30 km northeast of Ernakulam. Life was chugging on and his modest shop helped him get married and put his two children through school.
A week ago, the wrath of the local people fell on him and he was forced to shut his modest shop. “I was made to feel like a foreigner, and while there was no physical violence, I felt unwelcome,” he says. As he wanders the streets of Perumbavoor, he wonders if even after a decade of making this town his home, he has remained an outsider.
Haq is not alone. The backlash following the alleged sexual abuse and murder of a five-year-old girl by a man from Bihar in Aluva town on July 28 is being felt by the migrant worker community across Ernakulam district.
