Odisha: Eight get life term for chopping 2 labourers’ palms

BHAWANIPATNA: A court in Dharmagarh, 45 km from here, on Saturday sentenced

life imprisonment

to eight persons in the sensational 2013 incident in which an unlicensed labour contractor and his aides chopped palms of two

migrant labourers

after the latter refused to be trafficked.

Additional sessions judge A. C. Behera also imposed Rs 20,000 fine on each of them under the Bonded Labour Act, 1976 besides various IPC Sections including Section 307 (attempt to murder).

The convicts hacked palms of Nilambara Dhangda Majhi (35) and Pialu Dhangada Majhi (30) on December 15, 2013. The victims were part of 12-member group of labourers from Jaipatna block who refused to be taken to Raipur to a brick kiln. The contractor had paid Rs 15000 advance to each of them for working in Hyderabad.

Instead of taking them to the promised destination, he was shifting them to Raipur. On the way, the workers enquired about the destination, leading to heated arguments between them and the labour contractor’s men, the prosecution said.

The agents stopped the vehicle on the way and chopped their palms near Belpada forest under Sidhikela police station, about 35 km from here, in Kalahandi district while other workers got off the vehicle and fled the scene.

The convicts were identified as contractor Parbesh Duni and his associates Baidyanath Rout, Arjun Bhoi, Gangadhar Das, Bana Majhi, Jayasena Thela, Kamal Rout and Mantu Nial. A week after the incident, Kalahandi police had arrested them.

Nilambara died in September. Dialu Nial who was present during the final judgement on Saturday said, “I am happy with the verdict. But the 2013 incident ruined my life, rendering me almost jobless as I can hardly do hard labour work.”

In 2014, a Supreme Court bench headed by Justice T.S Thakur had expressed shock over the incident. “What is happening? What type of country we are living in? This type of incident does not happen even in the most primitive societies,” the bench had said taking suo motu cognizance of the matter. The SC had asked the Naveen Patnaik government to protect tribal people from being exploited by labour contractors and detail the steps taken by it to prevent recurrence of such incidents.

“This verdict will send a strong warning message to middlemen, contractors and labour agents who remain unregulated. They function with absolute impunity,” said Roseann Rajan one of the prosecution counsels. Acting on a direction of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the Odisha government had given Rs 5 lakh compensation to each of the two victims.