Police tell labourers not to leave camp sites

Campaign on to allay fears of villagers

The rumours of children being kidnapped from the villages have been preying on the minds of the villagers in the erstwhile Karimnagar district since last month.

During the last week of April, a Bengali youth was thrashed black and blue by villagers who suspected that he had come to kidnap children when he went to Kothapalli village of Jammikunta mandal. He was later handed over to the Jammikunta police, who found that he was mentally ill and starving and was having language problem. Besides, he had lost contact with his parents in West Bengal. Later, the police contacted the parents of the youth and handed him over to them.

Recently, a Bihari migrant labourer was nabbed and thrashed in Pedda Kalwala village of Peddapalli mandal by the villagers who mistook him to be a kidnapper. The migrant labourer had gone to the village to purchase liquor in a belt-shop and his ignorance of the local language led to a misunderstanding and the locals thrashed him before handing him over to the police.

Hundreds of labourers from Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal and other states are working in the granite industry, brick kilns, Kaleshwaram Lift Irrigation project and Mission Bhageeratha project. As the migrant labourers do not know the local language and they clearly appear to be outsiders, the villagers were suspecting them and attacking them. The Karimnagar Commissionerate of Police has launched a campaign through public address system, Blue colts and social media to educate people not to believe the rumours and assure them that there were no such gangs moving in the district.

Talking to The Hindu on Wednesday, Commissioner of Police V. B. Kamalasan Reddy said that they were advising the migrant labourers working in various places not to leave their camps for a week or a fortnight till the rumours die down and instructing the contractors and employers to provide all facilities to the migrant labourers at their camps.

Appealing to people not to take law to take law into their hands and not to move carrying lethal weapons in the name of patrolling in the villages, the Commissioner asked the villagers to call the police and assured that the police would reach the spot within 10 minutes.