Bhubaneswar: They had gone there to earn a living. There were 23 of them, all labourers from villages in Odisha’s Bargarh district.
But the brick kiln, where they worked in Telangana’s Peddapalli, turned out to be a hell hole. The owner exploited them, forced them to go without food and severely beat them up.
There was only one way out: contact someone who could help rescue them. The labourers knew about Deepa Barik, who is from Temari village under Paikamal block in Bargarh district and is known for her tweets drawing the attention of the government to people’s plight, earning her the title ‘Twitter Girl’.
One of the labourers managed to contact her and she came to know about their plight. Immediately, she contacted the Telangana police on Twitter.
Local police then rescued the labourers and put them on a train to Odisha.
The labourers reached Bargarh on October 31. Beaten up, forced to work round the clock and without food, when the labourers arrived in Odisha, the injuries were still fresh and they had to be sent by ambulance to the Paikamal health centre for treatment.
Several labourers showed their injuries.
So far, Deepa has been able to solve over 3,000 grievances of villagers in Odisha’s poor districts through her tweets.
Watch the video here:
