16 Kalahandi labourers kept captive in Bangalore

The Pioneer, Oct 8, 2009
Pradeep Baisakh | Bhubaneswar

Sixteen labourers, including three minors, were taken by a local contractor from Kalahandi district to work in construction sites in Bangalore in June. Contrary to the commitment, the labourers were made to work for unmanageably long hours and allegedly physically beaten by the contractor’s brothers Bapi Jena and Susant Jena there. Seven of them could manage to flee the place and returned to their village. The rest people are still trapped there.

Nineteen-year-old tribal youth Siba Bagh, one of the seven people who could manage to escape from the captivity of the contractors, said, “Susant Jena, the younger brother of the main contractor, would compel us to go to work even when we are ill. If we don’t agree, he would torture us.” Siba intimated that the rest people like Anna Naik (16), Bala Majhi (17) and Nilan Bag (18) are being tortured.

A local contractor, Khirasindhu Parabhoi, lured these youth to go to work in Bangalore. He took them to Banapur, Nayagarh, where the main labour contractor Bapi Jena stays. Then, they were taken to Bangalore. They used to be made captive in night so that they could not flee anywhere. The youth, who have come back, are unable to tell the exact place where they were working as they cannot read Kannad or English. They say they were staying in ‘Gold Tower’ near MG Road.

The parents of the rest people filed a complaint with the District Labour Office (DLO) in the first week of August, but nothing happened after that as the DLO seems to have made only lackadaisical attempt towards that end. In his defence, DLO Duryodhan Sethi says, “We have sent letter to the address in Bangalore basing on the information given by the people who have come back. But as the address is not correct, the letter came back undelivered.”

Commenting on the inaction of the labour office, Umi Daniel, a social activist working on migration issue, says “The Government has failed to enforce the laws on safety migration of labour. If the names of the labour contractors are available to the DLO, he should, in coordination with the police, get them arrested and find the whereabouts of the migrant workers.”