Bonded labourers: Book owners, demand protesting workers

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, February 23

The 57 bonded labourers, including child workers, rescued from an agricultural farm at Nakodar, have alleged that the administration is siding with the wealthy owners of the farm where they were employed and not registering an FIR against the owners of the farm where they were employed.

PMU Punjab state president Tarsem Peter condemned the district administration for rather initiating action against the labourers and booking them under Sections 188 and 283 of the IPC. He called upon labourers from across the village to join the dharna against the administration.

Even as activists of the PMU as well as bonded labourers rescued from farms at Bal Kohna and Khiwa villages here continued their fourth day dharna at the DC office for inaction against the owners of the farm for employing them, they demanded action against the farm owners, failing which the dharna would be intensified.

The labourers have been left to roam on the streets on their own without any action being taken against the owners of the farm where they were being employed as bonded labourers.

SDM Nakodar Amrit Singh was not available for comments as he was on leave.

They alleged that rather than providing justice for the bonded labourers, the SDM, who had called them to his office, could not ensure any action against their employers. They alleged that since the owner of the potato farm was a big landowner, no action was being initiated in the case.

They said while the Labour Department might have issued challans for the violation of labour laws to the owners of the farm, no further action was being taken in the case, even though as per the statements of the 57 bonded labourers, recorded by the police, FIRs should be registered as per the law for the bonded labour and Dalit atrocities.

They alleged that neither had they been provided their wages for the past three years, nor had the belongings of the labourers, which were misplaced by the farm owners, been made available to them despite over a week of the incident.

They said as the first dharna in this regard, effigies of the farm owners as well as SDM, Nakodar, would be burnt on February 25.

On the occasion, PMU activists Tarsem Peter, Hans Raj Pabwan, secretary Kashmir Singh Ghugshore, Veer Kumar, Iqbal Singh, among others, addressed the dharna.