Amarinder hits again at Centre on BSF probe alleging bonded labourers in Punjab farms

Days after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) wrote to the Punjab Chief Secretary and DGP to take motion on the findings of BSF that migrant bonded labourers have been being employed in state’s farms, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Sunday slammed the Centre for spreading misinformation in regards to the state’s farmers with its grave and incorrect allegations of bonded labourers working within the fields.
In an announcement, the CM termed it yet one more conspiracy to defame Punjab’s farmers, whom the Central authorities and the ruling BJP have been making an attempt to malign by dubbing them terrorists, city Naxals and goons in a bid to derail their agitation towards the farm legal guidelines.
Amarinder castigated the BJP-led authorities on the Centre over its unwarranted costs of farmers utilizing folks as bonded labourers in Punjab, trashing the Union Home Ministry’s letter of March 17 on this regard as a bundle of lies, geared toward undermining the farmers’ protest and denigrating the Congress authorities within the state.
A cautious evaluation of the entire episode reveals that extremely delicate data pertaining to nationwide safety relating to the arrest of some suspicious individuals, apprehended by BSF from near the unstable Indo-Pak border, has been twisted on baseless conjectures to malign and tarnish the farmer neighborhood, the CM stated. This actuality has been additional substantiated by the truth that “a selective leakage of the contents of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) letter to some leading newspapers and media houses has been done without waiting for an appropriate response from the state government”, he added.

Asserting that his authorities and the Punjab Police are competent and dedicated to safeguarding the human rights of the poor and the downtrodden, Amarinder stated appropriate motion has already been initiated in every case and many of the individuals are residing with their households. If something comes to note at any stage, appropriate authorized motion might be initiated towards the culprits, he added.
He was reacting to the Home Minister’s letter claiming that the BSF had apprehended 58 Indian nationals within the yr 2019 and 2020 from the border areas of Punjab, and the detainees had purportedly revealed that they have been working with farmers of Punjab as bonded labourers. “It has been further informed that illegal human trafficking syndicates exploit these gullible labourers and Punjabi farmers hook them to drugs to make them work for long hours in their fields,” the MHA had stated within the letter.
Rejecting the letter as completely “unwarranted and factually incorrect”, the CM stated neither the info nor the stated reviews submitted by the BSF authorities have been in tune with the contents of the letter. “The MHA letter talks of Abohar also while the fact is that there is no case of Abohar or Fazilka districts,” he identified, including that not one of the conclusions of the Centre have been borne out by information. Further, it was not the job of the BSF to analyze such issues, and so they have been solely accountable for detaining any individual discovered to be roaming alongside the border in suspicious circumstances, and handing them over to the native police, he added.

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Before taking pictures out such a letter and making it public by the media, the MHA ought to have checked the information and verified the knowledge from the state authorities as an alternative of creating false accusations towards farmers, and charging them with indulging in bonded labour and changing the labourers into drug addicts, he added.
“All the 58 cases alleged by the Centre have been investigated thoroughly and nothing of this kind has been found,” stated Captain Amarinder, lambasting the MHA for spreading such vicious and false propaganda.
He stated of the 58 detainees, 4 belong to totally different areas of Punjab and have been discovered roaming close to the Indo-Pak border by the BSF whereas three have been discovered to be intellectually disabled. One Paramjit Singh of Patiala, apprehended close to Pathankot, had been mentally disabled for the final greater than 20 years and had left his dwelling about two months earlier than his detention, Roorh Singh of Gurdaspur needed to be admitted to the Institute of Mental Health, Amritsar, on the day of his apprehension. Another individual, Sukhwinder Singh of SBS Nagar, was additionally dealing with psychological well being subject. Subsequently, all these three individuals have been handed over to their members of the family on the identical day, after verification by the native police.

Further, 16 of the 58 detainees have been discovered to be intellectually disabled, of whom 4 had been affected by this dysfunction since childhood. One Babu Singh of Buland Sheher, UP, was even having psychiatric remedy from Agra and was handed over to his members of the family on the manufacturing of his medical file. Even the establish of three individuals apprehended by BSF couldn’t be established resulting from their psychological well being circumstances, the CM stated, rejecting even the potential for these males being saved as bonded labourers for farm actions.
It has additionally come to mild that 14 folks had come to Punjab only some days/weeks previous to their apprehension. Hence the conclusion that that they had been working as bonded labourers in farms for lengthy “is totally refuted,” the CM stated, including that not one of the individuals apprehended has made any allegation of being forcibly saved as farm labourers underneath inhuman circumstances even earlier than the courts.

Nothing on file means that these individuals have been forcibly infused medicine to maintain them working for lengthy hours. Moreover, it’s incorrect to conclude that the mental incapacity of those individuals is drug- induced, Captain stated. He added that the majority of them have been medically examined with the assistance of BSF or police, and nothing on file urged that they have been hooked to any habit-forming medicine.