Eleven people from two families from Krishnagiri were rescued by the Bengaluru Urban District Administration’s South Sub-Division and the Labour Department on Friday from a rock in Jigani.
According to International Justice Mission volunteers, the two families were trafficked from Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu for breaking rocks in the quarry. The members of one of the rescued families were bonded labourers for the last 24 years, while the members of the other had been working under the same employer for the last 19 years. The former couple has four children and the latter, three.
The volunteers added that despite repeated requests by the families, their employer, Dilip Kumar, refused to pay heed and asked them for exorbitant amounts of money in return for their freedom. Further, one of the boys, aged 13, was also put to work at the quarry and the sand mining unit. The rest of the children worked as domestic help in the owner’s house and in the grocery store run by him. The older children were forced to discontinue school after Class 7 while the younger ones had to work before and after school hours, they said.
The labourers told officials that they would often get beaten up for making mistakes and were not allowed to step outside the quarry. Even though the prescribed minimum wage for a rock quarry worker in Karnataka is around ₹6,563 per person per month, they were paid ₹100 or less per day.
Speaking to The Hindu , Anekal Tahsildar P. Dinesh said the employer was operating unauthorised quarry work in ‘gomaala’ land. After official intervention, the family is now back in their village Gullatti in Krishnagiri, he added.
The Jigani police arrested the owner of the rock quarry, registering a case against him under Section 370 (Trafficking of Persons) of the IPC, Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act, 1976, and Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act, 2016.
Meanwhile, B.R Harish Naik, Assistant Commissioner, Bangalore Urban District, issued Release Certificates to all 11 bonded labourers. Each family was given ₹20,000 as initial compensation for their immediate needs.
