Families Seek Help From Police and MLA Over Trafficked Labourers
Key Points:
- Workers from Leslieganj’s Shahad village allegedly lured with false Jabalpur job offer
- Labourers say they were instead taken to Karnataka for sugarcane cutting work
- Families approach police, labour department and MLA Vinod Singh for rescue
PALAMU – Families of around 40 to 50 labourers from a village in the Leslieganj police station area have alleged that their relatives were trafficked to Karnataka and are being held against their will on a farm.
The affected workers belong to the Bhuiya Scheduled Caste community of Shahad village and include child labourers, teenage girls and older men and women, according to their families.
However, relatives said the workers were taken from the village by Laxmi Kumari, also of Shahad, and Dicky Singh of Patan, who allegedly promised them construction work in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, at a daily wage of Rs 600. Instead, the group was taken to Marchakanahalli in Basaveshwara, Karnataka, and put to work cutting and peeling sugarcane and loading it onto tractor trailers.
Meanwhile, families named several of the affected workers, including Ankaj Kumar Bhuiya, Omprakash Kumar, Kiran Kunwar, Usha Devi, Ayush Kumar and Sanjay Bhuiya, among others, saying they were taken about a month ago on the pretext of building-construction work.
According to the families, the labourers are made to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. and are beaten if they say they cannot continue or fall ill. They said the workers are housed in tents set up in the fields and kept under watch through the night to prevent anyone from leaving.
The families further alleged that the labourers are being told they must arrange Rs 25,000 each from home to cover the cost of their transport, food and upkeep before they will be allowed to return, or else continue working.
“There is no such situation, and all the workers are on the job by their own choice,” contractor Dicky Singh said when contacted on his phone, before ending the call and adding that he had already spoken to the local police and the labour superintendent.
In addition, the families of the workers have submitted written complaints seeking help at the Leslieganj police station, to labour superintendent Amit Kumar Chaudhary, to the migrant workers’ welfare department, and to CPI(ML) MLA Vinod Singh.
Leslieganj police station in-charge Uttam Kumar Rai said the workers’ relatives had approached the station and that police had spoken with Laxmi Kumari, who told them that around Rs 2,200 was spent per person to take the labourers to Karnataka and that anyone wishing to return could do so after repaying that amount. He said police could send an officer or two along if the families wished to travel there.
On the other hand, Shikha of the migrant workers’ welfare board said the workers were currently located roughly 300 kilometres from Bengaluru and that efforts were underway to contact the local police station there, adding that all the labourers were likely to be freed within a day or two.
Migrant labour from Palamu district travelling to other states for work has been a recurring concern in the region, with local authorities in the past also raising issues around welfare and safety of workers from Jharkhand employed outside the state.
