Odisha Workers Plead For Rescue from Telangana Brick Kiln; Last Year ‘Twitter Girl’ Rescued 23 Labourers

Bhubaneswar: More than 60 labourers, including women and children from Odisha’s Nuapada district, working in a brick kiln near Telangana, have alleged harassment by the owner and pleaded for rescue.

They have released a video, appealing to the Odisha government to rescue them.

The trapped workers are from Rajana, Ghotaswara, Tarabod and Belagaon villages in Nuapada district. Around Diwali last year, a middleman helped them find work at the brick kiln at Chandrampet village in Sircilla near Telangana.

They have alleged that the brick kiln owner was beating them up, not paying proper wages and torturing them.

Last year, 23 labourers from villages in Odisha’s Bargarh district, who were being exploited and beaten at a brick kiln in Telangana’s Peddapalli, were rescued by Deepa Barik.

Hailing from Temari village under Paikamal block in Bargarh district, she is known as the ‘Twitter Girl’ for her tweets drawing the attention of the government to people’s plight.

She had then contacted the Telangana police on Twitter, who then rescued the labourers and put them on a train to Odisha.