Gadchiroli Jan. 2 (District Correspondent) As many as 69 labourers including 18 from the remote tribal areas of Korchi in Gadchiroli district and Chhattisgarh state bordering Maharashtra, were safely rescued by well-known social worker Dr. Meghraj Kapur recently.
These labourers were lured under the pretext of paying handsome wages for the work of picking chillies, tomatoes and grapes and were taken to various places in Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, on reaching there, these labourers were forced to work in sugarcane fields. They were kept in fields four to five km away from their villages and were prevented from going to nearby villages.
The labourers were forced to work in a sugarcane field with no any wages. They were not even allowed to know in which village they were being kept. When the labourers asked for wages, they were told that they had bought them and that they had already paid the amount to their contractor. The farm owner and the person supervising the labourers were telling them that they had been cheated.
Gradually, the labourers realized that they had been cheated. Especially since the area from which the labourers were brought was rice cultivating one and they had no experience in sugarcane harvesting, they were made to work from 5 am to 10 pm and they were not getting wages.
The distressed labourers then secretly contacted Prof. Dr. Meghraj Kapoor of Gadchiroli district who has been working at Jawaharlal Nehru Social Work College, Nanded and the chief guide of the tribal Kanwar community requesting him to free them as soon as possible as some of the labourers knew him.
Considering the seriousness of the situation, Dr. Kapur immediately swung into action, sought the detailed information of the labourer’s whereabouts and along with his colleagues, went to Tuljapur in Maharashtra and rescued 39 labourers from there. Another 25 labourers who were working at Majalgaon area of Beed district and 15 labourers from a place where they were being forced to work in a field in Kolar area of Bijapur taluka of Karnataka state were also dramatically freed from the clutches of the land owner.
Especially, facing many difficulties in freeing the labourers from Karnataka, after assessing all the roads from 2:30 am in the dark of the night, all the labourers were safely released on foot at 5:30 am in a deserted place and then they were taken towards Maharashtra in two vehicles. The whole operation was conducted in a very dramatic way.
It took around 15 days for Dr. Kapur and his team to complete the risky operation. All the arrangements were made to free all the labourers from the clutches of the sugarcane contractors and reach their native villages. Prof. Sunil Rathod, Ganesh Telang, research student Buddhabhushan Sirse and Krishna Rathod from Karnataka state supported the operation in different events, told Dr. Kapur to this correspondent.
Relatives of the labourers and college employees congratulated Prof. Dr. Meghraj Kapoor for his well-planned work and the rescue operation. Friends, family, and dignitaries congratulated him for bringing Maharashtra to fame by showing that education is not just about book knowledge, but utilizing it in the times of difficulty and helping those who are in real need.
The further process of legal action against the contractors and the farm owners who used the poor people as bonded labourers is being taken by the Korchi police, according to Dr. Kapur.
