Nineteen impoverished and immiserized Bokaro workers, including two children aged four and seven, were enslaved by a construction firm in Mangalore, Karnataka, for more than four months before police raids ended their ordeal of confinement, hunger and insult last week.

The residents of Futlahi in Maoist-hit Kasmar block reached their native village on Monday evening following the intervention of Bokaro deputy commissioner and police chief.

They told The Telegraph that a Ranchi-based contractor had deceived them. Mithilesh Kumar, who had employed the workers in Namkum for six months since January, promised them a plum package of Rs 6,000 a month, besides food and accommodation, if they went to Mangalore. But he “sold” them as bonded labourers to a certain GDS Construction Company.

One of the workers, Dinesh Mahto, said Mithilesh sent them to Karnataka on June 28. He said they were expecting a fat pay, good food and decent stay. “But we got no money, frugal meals and only one cramped room,” he said.

Every morning, they had to wake up at 8am and toil hard for a minimum of 15 hours. “And when we asked for our wages, we were snubbed and abused. Our employer said a hefty advance had been paid to Mithilesh and we had no right to ask for money for at least one year,” Mahto said.

Highly placed district officials conceded that this was just the beginning of their horror. Some local employees too abused them as “bonded labourers” and slapped them if they talked about going home. They were kept confined to the company premises and not allowed to meet anyone from outside.

“We did not understand their language (Kannada). Problems compounded when some of our colleagues fell ill. No medicines were made available and the employer threatened of dire consequences if we informed the police or anyone in our village. Most of us were men (there was only one woman, besides the two young boys in the group), but we wept bitterly and cursed our luck every day,” Mahto recalled.

The workers had almost given up hope of freedom when one local employee took pity and lent them a mobile phone. “Ruplal, my co-worker, called our village mukhiya and informed him about our situation,” Mahto said.

The mukhiya also gave them Bokaro deputy commissioner Sunil Kumar’s number. The latter contacted his counterpart in Mangalore, while Bokaro SP Kuldip Dwivedi called up Mangalore police chief Varun Bansal. On November 22, a team of policemen in civil uniform raided the construction company’s premises and secured release of the workers. The proprietor of the firm managed to escape arrest.

Deputy commissioner Kumar told The Telegraph that he had ordered an FIR against the wily contractor and asked Ranchi SP Saket Kumar Singh to take action. The workers are being compensated with Indira Awas houses and 10kg of grain each. “We will also provide employment to these villagers under government schemes,” Kumar added.

What should be done to stop migration of workers?

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