Orissa High Court

Cuttack, March 15: Orissa High Court has issued a notice to the state labour and employees’ state insurance department to file a response to two incidents of torture on migrating labourers.

The court yesterday took cognisance of a letter petition regarding the two incidents — one in which a child labourer from Balangir lost a hand after being attacked by a brick kiln owner at Gulbarga in Karnataka and the other where the hands of two labourers were chopped off by a Kalahandi labour contractor.

Bhubaneswar-based Labour Law Lawyers’ Association had filed the letter petition seeking direction for legal action by the labour and employees’ state insurance department against the perpetrators of torture in the two incidents for securing appropriate compensation.

According to reports, 12-year-old Sushant Kumbhar of Kadalimunda village in Patnagarh area of Balangir district lost his left hand after Lacchman Nayak, a brick kiln owner, allegedly attacked him with an iron rod at Gulbarga in Karnataka last November. The incident came to light after he was rescued in January and taken to the district headquarters hospital. Later Sushant was shifted to V.S.S. Hospital in Burla. However, the doctors could not save the battered hand.

In the other incident last December, a labour contractor from Andhra Pradesh allegedly chopped off the right hands of two migrant labourers — Jialu Nial and Dhangada Majhi from Kalahandi district — when they refused to obey his orders.

The incident reportedly occurred inside a jungle at Belpada in Kalahandi district when the two labourers were being taken back to their homes.

The association, in its letter petition, alleged that the state labour and employees’ state insurance department had not taken any steps against the labour agents despite the reporting of a large number of cases on abuse of migrant labourers. The association expects action under the Inter State Migrant Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979.

In January, the Supreme Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the incident of chopping off the right hands of the two migrant labourers from Kalahandi and had issued notices to chief secretaries of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.