The
Statesman Delhi,
December 23, 1995
4
Children rescued from bondage
NEW
DELHI:
For them the day would start at 4 am and end at 12 p.m. The routine
continued for three long years and so did their ordeal before
they were rescued by the Bonded Liberation-Front on December 12.
Four boys, Ajay Parswan, 9, Mahendra Prajapati, 12, Basant Kumar,
13 and Ajay Mehto. 16, were bonded labourers at a carpet loom
owned by Motilal Gurah, in Handia.
These children
and their parents were lured with promises of a better tomorrow
and taken to Handia three years back.For
the past three years, the children were not allowed to go back
and neither were their parents allowed to meet them.
The loom owner,
before taking the boys along, had told their parents that the
money earned by them would be sent regularly. None of the promises
were kept and instead the children were subjected to inhuman treatment.
These boys were always watched over the made to work in the loom
after being locked from outside. Narrating their harrowing
experiences the boys said, "apart from being beaten on minor pretext
we were not given food to eat and were woken up abruptly in middle
of the night and forced to work."
Ajay, youngest
of the lot said, "we were also made to work on Motilal's field
when we not working at the loom."The
children recuperating from the shock and trauma they of the past
three years looked visibly relieved and were looking forward to
being with their parents again.All
of them expressed the hope of pursuing their studies and helping
their parents.
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