BENGALURU: In what appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to the latest police crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi migrants, several apartment complexes in the city’s tech corridors — Whitefield, Marathahalli and Electronics City — have directed recruitment agencies not to send them Bengali-speaking maids, security guards or other workers.The inability to distinguish between people from West Bengal and Bangladesh, who speak different variants of Bengali, is at the root of the blanket bar, say Bengalis in the city — who, to their chagrin, have found themselves at the short end of a very wrong stick.Residents of these complexes say their apartment associations have instructed them to avoid legal wrangles by not employing Bengali-speaking people. TOI found that many residents have even sent emails to recruitment agencies, BBMP and the city police commissioner about people they believe are migrant Bangladeshi workers.“Our apartment chairperson asked us not to employ Bengali workers because it puts the community at risk,” said Debayani Basu, a resident of Rohan Vasantha apartments in Munnekolala, Marathahalli. “We discussed the issue at a meeting on Sunday.”Basu, a Bengali, said: “The language is very similar, and even we cannot easily tell a Bengali from a Bangladeshi”Prabhu Patil, president, Rohan Vasantha, an apartment association in Marathahalli, said many Bengali families in the complex have hired Bangladeshi maids.“We’ve asked them to immediately collect all documents of these workers, including their Aadhaar cards, voter ID cards, and other personal information,” he said. “We have identified around 100 Bengali-speaking domestic workers. We will be holding a meeting tomorrow with our apartment complex’s Bengali association and interact with these workers.”Prathiba Kumari, a resident of Whitefield, said members of her apartment association have sent an email to residents requesting the agency that arranges for maids to stop sending them Bengali-speaking people.“For the past two weeks, we’ve been using the services of workers from north Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and parts of Andhra Pradesh,” Kumari said. “These people speak broken Kannada, a mix of Tamil and Kannada or Telugu and Kannada.”Vishnu Prasad, a resident of Bellandur, like many other citizens, says the government should have a mechanism to stop Bangladeshi citizens from coming to the city illegally because citizens are unable to distinguish between Bengalis and Bangladeshis.Muralidhar Rao, president, Bangalore Apartments’ Federation, said the federation had not issued any instructions to apartment associations on the issue — which is likely to affect hundreds of migrant workers, including several from West Bengal.“We are not aware of the situation,” he said. “Some apartments may have done this. Each apartment may take a decision on their own regarding the crackdown on illegal Bangladeshi migrants.”