Eighteen bonded labourers, including two children, were rescued from a brick kiln in Bevinahalli village in Mysuru district’s T Narasipura taluk on Monday, following a joint raid that exposed years of forced labour, physical torture, and illegal confinement. The rescued workers, all Dalits originally from Tamil Nadu, had been held at the site for periods ranging from four to twenty years.
Rescue Operation and Arrests
The raid was conducted by the District Legal Services Authority, local police, and the departments of women and child development and labour. It was triggered by information provided by NGOs Vikasana and Madilu, according to reporting by the Indian Express.
Three owners of the brick kiln — Mahadeva, Girish, and Yathiraj, all residents of T Narasipura — were arrested by Bannur police and remanded to judicial custody. They have been booked under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including those covering trafficking, wrongful confinement, assault, and voluntarily causing hurt.
Debt Trap and Daily Exploitation
All 18 rescued individuals are Dalits with roots in Tamil Nadu, according to Nagaraj Ankasadoddi, member-secretary of the District Legal Services Authority. Their bondage stemmed from advances taken from employers. One couple and their two sons, now aged 9 and 13, had accepted an advance of Rs 75,000 eight years ago and had been working at the kiln ever since. The employers refused to release any worker, citing repayment of the original advance with exorbitant interest.
Workers were forced to labour from 5 am to 6 pm every day, collectively earning only Rs 500 to Rs 1,000 per week, said Vibha Varghese, advocate and chief executive of Vikasana. From those meagre wages, the employer deducted the cost of rice supplied at Rs 30 per kilogram. Workers were not permitted to leave the premises together; only one male member per family could occasionally step out while the rest were required to stay behind.
Both children of the couple were engaged in forced labour. The younger child, aged 9, attended school but was made to work before and after school hours and on weekends, Varghese said. Workers who questioned their conditions or attempted to leave were beaten with sticks, and some sustained injuries severe enough to impair their ability to walk.
Couple Recaptured Before Rescue
The scale of the abuse came sharply into focus when one couple fled to a relative’s home in Mysuru on June 19 following repeated severe physical torture. Two days later, on June 21, the kiln owners traced the couple, forcibly brought them back to the worksite, assaulted them, and locked them in a room. They remained confined there until police arrived to carry out the rescue.
After the operation, police arranged medical examinations and treatment for all the rescued workers, Varghese confirmed. The case has drawn attention to the persistence of bonded labour in brick kilns, where debt bondage is used to trap vulnerable Dalit migrant workers for years at a time.
