52 kids rescued from Kapurthala farms in 3 years

Aparna Banerji

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Jalandhar, October 6

With the rescue of yet another kid in Sial village on Monday night, the potato farms of Kapurthala have now been flagged as a hotbed of the interstate child trafficking nexus. The kid was the 14th child labourer rescued from the notorious potato farm belt of Kapurthala in six months.

Before this, 38 children had been rescued from potato fields in Jalandhar’s Pholriwal village in December 2020. So far, 52 cases of rescue of child labourers (including from other states) employed in potato farms in the region have been reported.

FIR IN SIAL VILLAGE incident BY TODAY

Owners of the farm at Sial village will be booked by Friday. We’re looking into the reports of other kids’ presence at the farm. —Lal Vishwas Bains, Kapurthala SDM

While all these cases came to the fore with the intervention of NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan, one of the key complaints of the activists has been the reluctance of the administration to file an FIR against the farm owners. So far, only one farm owner has been booked or arrested despite repeated complaints to the police by the NGO.

In the Sidhwa Dona case, wherein 13 child labourers were rescued on April 6, an FIR was lodged against owners Major Singh and Resham Singh on April 30, 25 days after the incident. The owners were subsequently arrested and are currently out on bail.

Meanwhile, an FIR is yet to be lodged against the owner (or agents) of the Sial village farm from where a 12-year-old Sitamarhi-based boy was rescued. The NGO is also demanding raids to ensure the rescue of 15 more child labourers.

The declarations of these children as bonded labour (which makes them eligible for Rs 30,000 compensation upon being released and up to Rs 3 lakh on the conviction of their employers) is another key demand of the activists.

SSP Navneet Singh Bains said, “Child labour is certainly a major concern for us and we are looking into the case. Proceedings will also be initiated to find the other 15 children as flagged by the rescued kid.”