22 AP labour Sardars arrested at Kantabanji SATURDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2011 00:43 SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR HITS: 10

22 AP labour Sardars arrested at Kantabanji
SATURDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2011 00:43 SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR HITS: 10
22 AP labour Sardars arrested at Kantabanji
SATURDAY, 19 NOVEMBER 2011 00:43 SUDHIR MISHRA | BALANGIR HITS: 11
User Rating: / 0
PoorBest
In a bid to streamline the migration process and put an end to illegal migration from this district, under the direction of Balangir SP Awinash Kumar a team of police personnel led by inspector Ranjan Pattnaik on Thursday raided three hotels of Kantabnji town and arrested 22 Sardars (labour contractors) of Andhra Pradesh, who had come to recruit labourers from the district. Besides, three hotel owners of Kantabanji were taken to custody.

“We arrested the contactors as they could not produce valid papers to recruit labourers from this district. The Sardars showed letters of the Andhra Pradesh Government, but they are not valid in Odisha. The labour contractors should have applied to the Odisha Government through local District Labour Offices which had to be approved by the Odisha Government. After getting approval, they would be eligible to take labourers from Odisha,” said Inspector Ranjan Pattnaik.

The contractors and hoteliers have been booked under various Sections of IPC including 367 (kidnapping and confining as slaves) 368, 371 (dealing humans as slaves) and 120(b) (conspiracy) and Section 14 of the Sarai ACT of 1967 and Section 4 of the Hotel and Establishment Act of 1956, Pattnaik said

“During our raids, we found that a majority of hotel owners were not keeping ID proof of occupants,” he pointed out further. All the arrested persons were forwarded to court on Friday.

The arrest of the labour contractors at took a new turn in the evening as several Congress workers, led by their party’s Kantabanji MLA Santosh Singh Saluja, gheraoed the local police station demanding release of the arrested persons. The police resorted to mild lathi-charge to disperse the crowd.
======================================================================================