Crime
Migration Mess: No jobs in hand amid food crisis, Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa witnesses tribal exodus
Adivasis from the region move to other states for employment, only to find themselves worked to the bone, living in grim conditions and often cheated of their wages or held hostage by employers.
“I have a wife and five daughters, but there’s no work in the village. Even if you find some, the panchayat takes months to pay us,” said 35-year-old Poonamchand Sitaram Gautam, a resident of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh, who recently returned from Koratala in Telangana, where he was employed as a construction worker.
“Under the Public Distribution System, we receive just 5 kg of foodgrains for each member of the family every month. But these rations barely last a fortnight,” he added, alluding to the food crisis in his tribal-dominated village of Dabhia in the state’s Khalwa region.
Based on a field study conducted in 12 states by Ekta Parishad, Madhya Pradesh is purported to have the highest inter-state migration rate — standing at 32.39 per cent, Khandwa being one of the districts leading. According to estimates by a local body, between 5,000 and 10,000 tribals migrate out of Khalwa every year to work as labourers in other states.
Khalwa is spread over 70 to 100 km from the district headquarters. While many villages of this block are part of the Khandwa-Betul State Highway, most of Khalwa falls under the jurisdiction of the forest department, with 90 per cent of the population living in remote areas. In fact, when 101Reporters visited Dabhia, we found that at least two members from each house had migrated to other states for work.
Last year, Gautam’s 16-year-old daughter Garima found work as a labourer to build drains under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA). After working eight hours a day for five weeks, Garima was paid only two weeks’ worth of wages. When her mother Rajni Bai questioned the panchayat, she was told that the money had been transferred to her account, but they have yet to receive it.
Jamna Kallu Chauhan, too, shared her woes. “In the last two weeks, I carried out digging work for the panchayat eight hours a day. But I was paid only for one week. I approached the panchayat office in Semliya repeatedly, but no one cooperated with me,” the 60-year-old said.
The sarpanch of Semliya panchayat Pyari Bai Ramesh Takher, however, denied any outstanding payments.
“No labourer’s wages are outstanding with the panchayat,” she claimed. “The money has been transferred into their accounts. The villagers often withdraw money and blame us later.”
No logic to the numbers
Kishore Kumar Uike, the CEO of Janpad panchayat, insisted that the district is continually opening up job opportunities for the area’s local residents.
“Janpad panchayat has created employment for 17,000 labourers in the development block,” he said. “I don’t understand why people are migrating for work. Even today, if anyone approaches us for work through the panchayat or district, we will provide them with work.”
According to the MGNREGA website, which currently seems inaccessible, 3,821 days of wages were generated in Khalwa from May 2020 to May 2021, benefiting 644 workers. The work given to labourers included pond construction, canal deepening and dam checks. The website has had no updates since then.
A hunger-induced distress migration
According to Prakash Michael, treasurer of the Spandan Samajseva Samiti, an organisation working to provide nutrition and employment to these tribals, the primary cause for migration is the food crisis in the region, which has increased in the last couple of decades.
“Adivasis have ditched growing traditional crops and turned to cash crops such as soybean. Bajra and other millets such as koda and kutki, once the backbone of their nutrition, are no longer visible in the fields. They use most of the money they earn by selling produce to repay loans. They are left with very little foodgrains, so this is basically hunger-induced distress migration,” Michael told 101Reporters.
This explanation holds true for 60-year-old Jamna, who now lives alone in her hut. Her husband, Kallu Chauhan, had “taken up a contractual job of harvesting moong in Nahali, Harda district, despite being terribly ill. The family’s financial crisis had pushed him to move, and within three days, we lost him to the illness.”
One lakh labourers migrate from Nimar
While the administration has no official figures to share, Spandan Samajseva Samiti, which collects data for land surveys, estimates that around 1 lakh people from Khandwa, Khargone, Barwani and Burhanpur of Nimar district migrate to Maharashtra, Telangana, Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh each year.
However, this large workforce is unorganised and unprotected. These labourers are neither insured by their employers, nor are they provided safety equipment for use while working. This often leads to their death, and since there are no official records of migrant labourers, employers shirk their responsibilities by deeming them mere accidents.
Under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, the employer must provide migrant workers with food, lodging, healthcare and social activities. Labour officials must be kept in the loop to ensure that workers’ rights are not violated. Also, the figures of migrant workers must be displayed on the Migrant Labourer Portal, though no data appears to track this information.
District Labour Officer S.S. Alawa explained that the act “can be invoked only if the contractors or residents officially inform the department about their migration, which the tribals here fail to do. Hence, they cannot exercise any rights under this law”.
Wily contractors, callous employers
Furthermore, contractors here deploy locals to connect them with labourers. These people take advantage of their knowledge of the Korku dialect and lure the tribals by promising large sums of money as wages. They are often paid an advance so they believe it’s a good deal and manage to convince their friends and neighbours, too.
On the appointed day, the contractor’s vehicle arrives at the village to transport the migrants. The journey usually takes place at night, so the workers don’t recognise where they are being taken. They often don’t find out for days and weeks which village, district or state they are working in. The contractor shares his mobile number to placate the families, but the phone is often turned off once they set out with the migrant labourers.
Daji Lofa, a 30-year-old who returned from harvesting sugarcane in Maharashtra, recalls a contractor who had come to the village before Diwali last year and promised everyone cane-cutting work for three months. He had also promised them huge amounts of money, which would enable them to stay home without working for the rest of the year. He had paid an advance of Rs 7,000 to one of the workers. A week after Diwali, the contractor arrived at 11 pm with two mini Eichers and took 40 people with him. But they were refused pay after putting in hours of hard labour.
Such are the kinds of experiences that the tribals of Khandwa attempt to flee.
Babu Mangal, one of the workers from Khalwa held hostage in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, last year, said they were treated worse than animals. He, along with his wife, had to continue harvesting sugarcane despite being terribly ill.
“We didn’t get any treatment when we were ill. We had to arrange for our own food and sleep in the open fields or inside warehouses,” the 50-year-old told 101Reporters.
Similarly, when Sunita Kajle from Langoti village went to Maharashtra to work, she found out she was pregnant. But she was still forced to continue working long hours without relief or proper nutrition until the sixth month of her pregnancy. As a result, she gave birth to a malnourished daughter after returning.
In some cases, the tribals bear the consequences of this survival act — the migration — longer than they could have anticipated, at times for life.
Take Munni Bai, for instance. She injured herself while working at a brick kiln and continues to live with it. She had dropped bricks on her feet, which initially caused swelling and later became worse. Munni can no longer work due to her injured leg and has received no compensation from neither the contractor nor the government.
Socio-economic factors
Khandwa district has a population of 13,10,061, of which 80.20 per cent live in villages. The literacy rate of Khalwa is only 43.10 per cent (51 per cent among males and 34 per cent among females). Despite this, the proportion of labour in Khalwa is 17.38 per cent, of which 9.66 per cent is male and 7.72 per cent female. Agriculture is the primary source of income, but the people here barely own any land, 2 acres per family on an average.
The percentage of total agricultural farmers in the tehsil is 14.08 per cent in Khalwa, of which 9.88 per cent are male and 4.20 per cent are female. There’s no focus on employment-oriented education, and the entire sector is dependent on resources from agriculture and forests.
In 2009-2010, the state government had created natural resource-related jobs in Awliya under the Small Forest Produce Association, for the manufacture of incense sticks, perfumes, bamboo furniture and household items. Initially, over a 100 people were employed under this scheme, but they could not grow beyond making incense sticks, which wasn’t financially viable and hence, discontinued.
Crime
Mumbai: Man Stabbed To Death After He Intervenes To Settle Dispute In Sion Koliwada; Antop Hill Police Arrest 5
Mumbai: A 22-year-old was murdered in the early hours of Friday in Mumbai’s Sion Koliwada area after an argument broke out over noise pollution. The Antop Hill police have registered an FIR in the case and so far five people have been arrested and further investigation is underway.
The incident took place around 12:30 am in Kokri Agar In Jai Maharashtra Nagar, Antop Hill. Vivek Gupta (22) was attacked with a knife and he succumbed to his injuries. As initial information available, a group of people were making noise causing disturbance on the street which lead to an argument broke out. Gupta had gone to resolve the dispute between the accused, however, angered over his interference, Gupta was attacked.
What started as a small fight soon escalated and Gupta was attacked with a knife. He was immediately taken to Sion Hospital, however, he succumbed to his injuries. He was pronounced dead at 3:30 am. The senior police officers of Mumbai Police Zone 4 were present at the hospital. The cops have so far arrested five suspects connected to this incident, and further investigation is underway.
The arrested accused are: Karthik R Mohan Devendra, Karthik Kumar Devendra, Vicky Muttu Devendra, Miniappan Ravi Devendra and the wife of Karthik R Mogan, the police informed. The case is registered under the relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita.
Crime
Mumbai: 6 Booked For Defrauding Stock Trader Of ₹1.5 Cr In Bitcoin Investment Scam
Mumbai: The Bandra police have registered an FIR against six persons for allegedly defrauding a stock trader of nearly Rs 1.50 crore in a Bitcoin investment scam. The suspects fled even before the case was filed, prompting a manhunt. They have been identified as Abur Sode, Dhanjibhai Rawaria, Jishan Shaikh, Indrajit Latif, Abdul Latif, and Ramkumar Dharmak, all from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.
The complainant in the case, Yogesh More, 50, is a resident of Parel and operates a stock trading business in the Marwari area in Bandra West. He met the accused three years ago, during which they introduced themselves as representatives of a company called Friptex Finsol, claiming to offer Bitcoin as a virtual currency.
Trusting them, More transferred around Rs42 lakh in cash and Rs1.08 crore via cheque to various bank accounts associated with the company for Bitcoin purchases between November 2021 and October 2024. Despite these payments, he did not receive the promised Bitcoins, and after multiple inquiries, the accused continued to evade him. Over the last three years, neither the Bitcoins nor a refund was provided.
Complaint Lodged At Bandra Police Station
Suspecting fraud, he began investigating and discovered that Friptex Finsol was a bogus company, and the accused had orchestrated a scam. He then lodged a complaint with the Bandra police. Following an initial inquiry, the police registered a case against six persons under sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), and 34 (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
A police officer said that the accused are from Mumbai and Navi Mumbai. “The preliminary inquiry has not revealed any past criminal history. We are searching for the accused,” the officer added.
Crime
West Bengal: Youth Arrested For Rape Of Deaf & Mute Woman In South 24 Parganas’ Kultali
Kolkata: A youth was arrested on the charges of raping a deaf and mute woman at a deserted building in Kultali in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal.
Even as the main accused in the case has been arrested, the local people had been agitating claiming that a local Trinamool Congress panchayat chief Prahlad Nashkar allegedly pressurised family members of the victim to settle the matter against Rs 2,00,000.
However, Nashkar has denied the allegations, saying he was the first to reach the spot and inform the family members of the victim about the incident.
Complaint Filed
The victim’s family members filed a complaint on Wednesday evening. Thereafter, the police started an investigation and based on circumstantial evidence, the accused youth was arrested.
He will be presented at a district court in South 24 Parganas on Thursday only and the public prosecutor will seek his police custody, a district police official said.
Part Of Kultali & Jaynagar Turn Into Virtual Battlefields
In the first week of this month, part of Kultali and adjacent Jaynagar turned into virtual battlefields over violent protests by the local people over the rape and murder of a minor girl there.
At that point in time, the main allegation of the local people was against the police and the latter ignored the missing complaint by the parents of the victim. The local people also alleged that had the police been active in tracking the victim minor, the heinous crime could have been averted.
The protesters became violent and attacked the police station. A local police camp was ransacked and set on fire. The police had to resort to massive lathi-charge to dispel the mob then.
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