Farm labourers given medication to paintings longer, Centre tells Punjab; bid to malign symbol, says farmer chief

In a letter that might cause a brand new flashpoint in its ongoing five-month-long face-off with protesting farmers from Punjab, the Centre has requested the state executive to do so at the findings of a probe by way of the BSF that migrant bonded labourers from Bihar and UP had been being hired within the state’s farms and administered medication to extract lengthy hours of labor.

Within the letter despatched on March 17 to the Punjab Leader Secretary and DGP, the Ministry of House Affairs (MHA) mentioned that during 2019-20, the BSF apprehended 58 such labourers from the border districts of Punjab.

The letter drew sharp reactions from farm leaders protesting towards the Centre’s new agriculture rules. Jagmohan Singh, normal secretary of BKU Dakaunda and member of All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), accused the Centre of seeking to “malign the picture of farmers”.

A senior Punjab Police officer, talking on situation of anonymity, showed the contents of the letter however described the findings as “far-fetched”.

Former NDA best friend, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), mentioned the letter used to be in keeping with a “ridiculous assumption aimed purely at defaming farmers of the state”.

Regarding the 58 other people “apprehended” by way of the BSF “from the border spaces of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Ferozepur and Abohar”, the Centre’s letter states: “All over the process wondering, it emerged that almost all of them had been both mentally challenged or had been in a feeble frame of mind and feature been operating as bonded labourers with farmers in border villages of Punjab. The individuals apprehended belong to deficient circle of relatives background and hail from faraway spaces of…Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.”

Elevating the problem of human trafficking, the letter states: “…human trafficking syndicates rent such labourers from their local position to paintings in Punjab at the promise of fine wage, however after achieving Punjab, they’re exploited, paid poorly and meted out inhuman remedy. For making them paintings for lengthy hours in fields, those labourers are ceaselessly given medication, which adversely have an effect on their bodily and psychological situation. BSF has been turning in the rescued individuals to State Police for additional vital motion.”

Describing the problem as “multi-dimensional” and of “overwhelming enormity”, it states that because it comes to human trafficking, bonded labour and human rights, “you might be asked to seem into the topic and take suitable measures to handle this major problem”.

It provides: “Motion taken within the topic would possibly please be told to this Ministry on precedence.”

Requested concerning the contents of the letter, Jagmohan Singh mentioned: “After calling us Khalistani and terrorists, the Union Govt is enjoying but every other communal card. This survey, as in step with the MHA, used to be finished by way of BSF in 2019-20 and it’s sudden that they sat in this document until now and wrote to the Punjab Govt handiest when the farmers’ agitation is at its top.”

Interesting to the MHA to withdraw the letter, Singh mentioned: “Now we have an integral bond with our labourers. They need to create variations between us and our Hindu migrant staff of UP and Bihar who come once a year to paintings around the state. We will be able to meet the DCs of the border districts of Punjab and bring our anger over this letter. We will be able to produce migrant staff operating within the fields of those districts as evidence.”

Harjeet Singh Grewal, the Punjab BJP’s level individual for farmer unions, described the letter as “purely an administrative” topic and mentioned that “doing politics over this isn’t proper”.

In a remark, former SAD MP Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra mentioned: “Such letters from the House Ministry may also ship a fallacious sign around the nation and create an environment of war of words.”

The senior police officer, in the meantime, expressed “wonder” over the letter’s contents and mentioned the problem used to be “by no means raised within the common conferences” between Punjab Police and BSF. “It looks as if a far-fetched concept that bonded labourers are introduced in, and ceaselessly given medication for efficiency enhancement,” the officer mentioned.

(With Kanchan Vasdev in Chandigarh)