Gurugram, July 22 -- Gurugram's gated luxury and glassy towers now stand amid rotting garbage. A quiet exodus is unfolding beneath the city's gleaming skyline, one that threatens to paralyse its already fragile waste management system.

Hundreds of domestic workers and sanitation staff-many of them Bengali-speaking migrants-have fled the city in recent days, gripped by fear amid a police verification and detention drive. The fallout is swift and visible -- garbage piling up in residential sectors, door-to-door collection systems collapsing, and residents scrambling to manage waste on their own.

From Sector 103 to Palam Vihar, Sectors 56, 57, Golf Course Extension Road, Gurugram-Faridabad Road, Sector 29 and new developing sectors, street...