SIVAGANGA: Nine members of a family were recently rescued from bonded labour at a brick kiln in Singampunari, where they have been working for more than four years.
Sources said the nine ended up at the brick kiln after P Veeran (57) of Pulipatti in Madurai district, borrowed around `1.2 lakh from S Ramesh of Singampunari in Sivaganga district in 2018.
As he was not able to repay the amount, Ramesh brought in Veeran and his family members to work in 'KRV Bricks', a brick kiln owned by Ramesh. "The family was paid only half salary and the remaining half got adjusted to the loan amount's interest. Ramesh even forced a pregnant woman to work until the day before her delivery and made her return back to work just 15 days after childbirth."
"Based on a tip-off, Collector P Madhusudhan Reddy ordered assistant commissioner (labour department) R Rajkumar and others to conduct a joint inspection at the kiln," they added.
The team rescued Veeran, his wife Selvi (50), their four children -- Maheshwari (29), Guna (22), Thirumoorthy (19) and Prakesh (18); son-in-law Muthukaruppan (38) and daughters-in-law Kayalvizhi (20) and Vijayasanthi (18) from the unit. Sivaganga Collector has also taken steps for issuing them compensation and rehabilitating them.