Money, ID, only link to family: Noida Police hold on to phones despite workers being released

Most of the nearly 1,100 workers detained by Uttar Pradesh police under Section 170 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita – a provision meant for preventive detention, not punishment – have been released. But when this article was written, more than 15 days after they were released, the workers’ phones or personal belongings had not yet been returned.

They had been detained after a series of protests led by contract workers across industrial units in Noida over the course of six days from April 9. The workers were drawing attention to their low wages, worsening working conditions and lack of statutory protections. Adding to their problems has been the rise in the price of cooking gas since the start of the war on Iran.

Rather than being addressed as labour disputes, these assertions of basic rights were met with a police crackdown, converting an industrial relations issue into a question of public order.

Not returning the phones of the workers after they were released from detention is a continuation of punishment after the detention has ended.

A phone, for most working-class Indians, is their only interface with their financial lives and identity proof: UPI, mobile banking, the digital wallet hold whatever little they may have saved while their Aadhaar, driving licence, medical history is also saved on their devices.

The police have offered no timeline for returning the workers’ belongings. There has been no communication, process nor acknowledgement that these items belong to someone. Lawyers also say that had there been a paper trail of the belongings seized, they could have submitted an application to the courts.

Among those stuck in the digital limbo is a pregnant woman who alleged that she was kicked in the stomach by the police during the scuffle on the streets outside her factory. She said was allowed to go only when she managed to communicate that she was pregnant. Even though she was not formally detained, her phone was not returned to her.

She needs her phone to communicate but also as a medical necessity since it holds her previous prenatal records and the Rs 3,000 to pay for an ultrasound.

Then there are migrant workers who came to the National Capital Region to work and send money home. Their families have been unable to travel from their home states to visit them in jail or arrange legal help because the money that would fund that travel was sent through phones that the police still hold.

It was their co-workers – fellow migrants, themselves living close to the edge – who stepped in and arranged legal representation. Many families have incurred debts that will keep them beholden for years on end.

Young workers who have been released from preventive detention want to return to their villages but are stranded. They cannot leave behind their phones which have money, identity documents and the Aadhaar that ties them to every entitlement they receive. Towards the end of April, those in Noida faced another crisis with rent due but their only funds being locked inside the phones the police will not return.

Meanwhile, many workers have not returned to their workplaces. Word has spread that HR departments are identifying and getting workers arrested at the factory gate itself. Until workers get their phones back, they have no money or documents. They are trapped between the police station that refuses to return their belongings and the factory that is now a site of ongoing reprisal.

Is access to one’s phone now a human right? Does that mean not returning the workers’ phones violates their human rights? That is how it is increasingly being seen.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has long held that access to digital communication tools is inseparable from the right to free expression and participation in public life. The Supreme Court of India, in the Anuradha Bhasin case in 2020, recognised that the right to access the internet is connected to the fundamental rights under Article 19, which guarantees the freedom of speech, and Article 21 protecting life and personal liberty.

A phone, in this country and at this moment in history, is much more than a gadget: it is a person’s access to their money, identity, healthcare and family.

The detained workers were not charged with any offence. The law used against them is explicitly preventive – it carries no criminal conviction, no trial, and must lead to release within 24 hours without a magistrate’s order. They workers walked out, legally free (albeit after five to seven days in custody instead of 24 hours). But the police hold onto their belongings.

A pregnant woman is waiting for an ultrasound she cannot afford without her phone. That should be all anyone needs to hear.

Rakhi Sehgal is an independent labour researcher with over two decades of association with the trade union movement.