Maharashtra: Palghar man, his kin forced to work as bonded labourers; 3 booked

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Police in Maharashtra's Palghar district on Sunday said that a 19-year-old man and his family members have been allegedly forced to work as bonded labourers in Solapur and not paid full wages for it.

When they sought the pending wages, the man was kidnapped, held captive and beaten up, news agency PTI reported. A case was registered on Sunday in this connection against three persons from Karmala in Solapur, Police said.

The man and his family members were engaged for cutting sugarcane crop at a farm of a person in Solapur between October 2022 and February this year. They were paid Rs 1.69 lakh against the total due payment of Rs 6,87,500, an official from Manor police station said quoting the FIR.

On November 1, the farm owner and two other persons called the man to Mastan Naka in Manor area of Palghar under the pretext of paying the pending wages.

The accused then allegedly took the man with them in a car and held him victim captive at the farm owner's house from November 1 to 3 and beat him up severely, causing injuries to him, the official said.

They also abused him over his caste. Later, the accused brought the victim back to his village and released him, the official said.

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Following a complaint by the victim, the police registered a FIR against the farm owner and the two other accused under Indian Penal Code sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 504 (intentional intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation), and also under provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act.

Meanwhile, a 10-year-old boy died after falling into a bucket filled with water at his house in Navi Mumbai township. The incident took place on Saturday evening when the boy was playing near the water-filled bucket in the house located at Palaspe village in Panvel area.

He accidentally fell into the bucket and started choking, an official from Panvel town police station said quoting the information given by the boy's parents. The boy was then rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him brought dead, the official said.

The police sent the body to a government hospital for postmortem and registered a case of accidental death, he said. (With inputs from PTI)