19 workers fled Arunachal border road project. Only 10 survived. Their ordeal tells a larger story
Relatives of the workers, all from impoverished villages in Lower Assam, allege they were engaged in forced labour.
Hikmat Ali called his family on July 5 with disappointing news. His “malik”, or supervisor, had just told him and his colleagues that they could not go home for Eid.
It had been a little over a month since the 45-year-old from Bhakuamari village in Assam’s Baksa district had travelled hundreds of kilometres to Arunachal Pradesh as part of a group of 28 workers to labour on a border road project close to China.
Denied leave for Eid, 19 of them had “fled the camp and gone missing,” said Ali’s aunt, 65-year-old Jamiran Nessa.
On July 23, eight of the 19 missing workers were rescued after they had spent nearly three weeks wandering through dense forests and hilly terrain. They had bad tidings for Hikmat Ali’s family. “We heard from his rescued colleagues that he is not alive,” Nessa said. “His wife and one of his brothers fainted after hearing the news.” Hikmat Ali was the only breadwinner of his eight-member family.
Although the authorities in Arunachal Pradesh haven’t confirmed Ali’s death, hopes of finding him alive have faded. Of the 19 workers who fled, 10 have been found alive. Five decomposed bodies were recovered from dense forests in Arunachal while a sixth body was found in the Furak River. Some of the bodies are so badly decomposed, they are yet to be identified. On August 1, the search for the remaining three workers was called off.
The workers had been recruited for a Border Road Organisation project to build a road from Damin to Huri in Arunachal Pradesh’s Kurung Kumey district. The Border Roads Organisation is the road construction agency of the Indian armed forces. The project had been farmed out to contractors who were in charge of managing the worksite and recruiting for it.
Residents of Bhakuamari and the families of at least two workers allege they had been trafficked from Assam to Arunachal Pradesh and made to work under coercive conditions.
Johurul Islam, a relative of one of the missing workers, filed a first information report against Raham Ali, one of the subcontractors, on July 29. On August 1, he was arrested by the Arunachal police and booked for cheating and criminal breach of trust.
On August 2, a second arrest was made. Bengia Tani, the brother of Bengia Bado, the main contractor to whom the Border Roads Organisation had outsourced the project, was booked for wrongful restraint, criminal intimidation and section of the Arms Act. According to Inspector Gejum Basar of Arunachal’s Koliarang police station, he had fired in the air on July 4, the day before the workers fled the worksite.
But the Arunachal police and Border Road Organisation officials, as well as contractors in charge of the project, have denied allegations of forced labour.
Either way, the episode has thrown light on a grim reality in Arunachal Pradesh. Most of the workers employed for border road projects come from poor Muslim-majority districts in Lower Assam. Driven by desperation and drawn by the promise of higher daily wages, they end up working under exploitative conditions.
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