Taking cognizance of the matter, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has issued the letter to clear the air that the Punjab government is not to blame farmers over bonded laborers' issue.
Notably, on March 17, the MHA has written a letter to the Punjab Chief Secretary and DGP of Punjab POlice claiming that the bordering village farmers are drugging the laborers from outside the state which includes UP and Bihar, to get their fieldwork done at low cost.
Earlier in the letter, it was said, " laborers are not given wages even after doing more work than scheduled. Most of these laborers working in the bordering fields of the states belong to remote areas of UP and Bihar and often hail from destitute families. Human trafficking gangs bring such workers to Punjab by luring them with good salaries, but they are exploited when they reach Punjab. They are treated inhumanly."
However now, the MHA has said that the purpose of the letter was to only highly the issue of bonded laborers in border villages so that appropriate action can be taken against the human trafficking gangs.
A section of the media has erroneously reported that this MHA has written to the Punjab Government allegedly leveling grave charges against the farmers of the state. These news reports are misleading and present a distorted and highly editorialized opinion of a simple observation about a socioeconomic problem emerging from four sensitive border districts of Punjab over a period of two years, which has been brought to the attention of this Ministry by the concerned CAPF.
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Firstly, no motive can be ascribed to a letter issued by this Ministry to a particular State or States as this is part of routine communication over Law and Order issues. This letter has also been forwarded to the Secretary, Union Ministry of Labour & Employment with a request to carry out a sensitization exercise in all States, with an aim to check the duping of vulnerable victims at the hands of unscrupulous elements.
Secondly, some of the news reports about the letter have juxtaposed in a totally unrelated context to conclude that the MHA has framed “grave charges” against the farmers of Punjab and has also connected this with the ongoing farmers’ agitation. The letter clearly and only states that “human trafficking syndicates” hire such laborers and they are “exploited, paid poorly and meted out inhuman treatment” besides luring them with drugs to extract more labor affecting their “physical and mental health”.
Keeping in view the multi-dimensional and overwhelming enormity of the problem, this Ministry has only requested the State Government(s) to “take suitable measures to address this serious problem”.