People's Democracy

PUNJAB BONDED LABOURERS

CM Must Punish The Guilty, AIAWU Demands

Following is the letter written on June 5 by Suneet Chopra, joint secretary of the All India Agricultural Workers Union to Punjab chief minister Amarendra Singh on the bonded labourers issue.

IT is with grave concern that I am writing to you regarding 3 bonded labourers from Amritsar district, who were freed from the farm of Bhagwan Singh of Bhangva village on June 2 and are now housed with the Pingalwara Charitable Trust, whom I met on June 3.

They were made to work daily from 5 am to 7 p m in the fields when they were chained and tied to a pillar for the night. They were paid no wages. They had all been picked up at Ludhiana station. Two of them were held for 2 years or more. One was 18, called Gunga.

He cannot speak or tell where he came from. The other, Happy, is 13 and does not know where he was born. The third, 25-year-old P Maradamuttu from Dindigal in Tamil Nadu, was enticed away from Ludhiana with a promise of Rs 800 per month and was enslaved for over 10 months. He is literate and can give a proper account of what happened to all three of them.

When I discussed the matter with activists of the local units of our union, I was told that other villages in the area, like Kakkar, had similar bonded labourers who were chained at night. The excuse given is that they are from outside and would commit dacoities otherwise.

I would appeal to you to immediately conduct a survey of bonded labour in the district and ensure the presence of members of different agricultural labour unions on these committees. Cases must be instituted against all such criminal elements in rural Amritsar and other areas of Punjab where such inhuman treatment is being meted out to helpless workers. Our union would like to know what steps the Punjab government is taking to stop this pernicious practice as soon as possible.