The state of Tamil Nadu has been revealing that it houses more bonded laborers from the capital city to the interior parts of the state as Namakkal district has accounted for employing bonded laborers from the state of Chattisgarh in what it appears to be the recent revelation of series of bonded labor issues followed by the rescue of such laborers in Chennai last September.

The reports say that, on Tuesday Namakkal police, by joining hands with district revenue department authorities have rescued five bonded laborers who have been working at a borewell company in the district for over 18 months. The initial investigations have exposed that all these five laborers belong to the state of Chattisgarh and they have been working in Venkatachalapathy Diesel Works, the local borewell company, for about 18 months without getting paid by the employer. It has been reported that while hired for employment, these laborers were under the age of 18. Throughout their bonded labor employment, they had traveled to nearby districts to lay borewells.

After having been rescued, the police department has identified them as Rajman (19), Santlal (19), Shankar (20), Balliram (19) and Jailal (19) and the sources from the police have cited that they will be sent back to their home state of Chattisgarh. However, the police have revealed that they have been hunting the whereabouts of the owner who has been at large. They have been put as enforced laborers by the broker who brought them to Namakkal. The reports stated that the police department had received inputs for suspicious activity through an NGO following which they joined with the Revenue department to rescue the laborers.

While speaking about the rescue mission, an official from the rescue team had cited that the rescued laborers were given with Rs 5000 as the advance amount from the owner during the time of getting employed after which they haven't paid for the past 18 months and added that the manager of the company had assured the authorities that their pending salaries will be released by the company along with proper certificates.

For the past two months, the issue of bonded laborers gets rampant in Tamil Nadu where in September, the Chennai city police had rescued about 61 laborers including 52 minors who were allegedly working in the jewelry manufacturing units in the city. The primary investigations have uncovered that they were forced to shelter in small houses where they resided. The reports indicated that they were mainly hired by the jewelry making units to do melting and polishing works for the gold.