‘Fake FIRs registered against kiln workers’

LAHORE

Fake FIRs have been registered against kiln workers vulnerable to forced labour by powerful kiln owners with the connivance of police in Kasur.

All labour organisations and 2.3 million kiln workers will observe countrywide protest if the innocent workers in illegal confinement of police are not released.

The brick-kiln workers are being tortured at police stations and torture cells. The purpose of fake FIRs is just to force workers to withdraw the case of minimum wage and trap them into forced labour. That is why, in most recent FIR at police station Pattoki Sadar, seven days have passed after arrest and police has not produced labourers before any court of law.

These views were expressed by Syeda Ghulam Fatima, secretary general of an NGO, Latif Ansari and Aslam Miraj, Mahmood But and civil society organisations while speaking at a press conference at Lahore Press Club, Tuesday.

Syed Ghulam Fatima said all labour organisations and 2.3 million kiln workers would observe countrywide protest if the innocent workers in illegal confinement of police were not released. She highlighted the major problems confronted by brick-kiln labourers and condemned the physical abuse of labourers particularly female workers.

Maher Safdar said brick-kiln owners had created hindrance everywhere. Labourers are being exploited in the name of advance payments. In this way, vulnerable people fall into bonded labour. The Punjab government has provided legal support to bonded labour by legalising peshgi in Punjab Prohibition of Child Labour at Brick-Kilns Act-2016, while Bonded Labour System Abolition Act 1992 declares peshgi a penal offence.

He lamented that labourers were low paid, influential kiln owners were still resisting the decision, as the government had issued a notification regarding payment of at least Rs1,036 per 1,000 bricks to workers while the owners only pay Rs650 to the workers in Lahore, Sheikhupura and Kasur. The situation is worst in other parts of the country.

Condolences: A large number of people from different walks of life visited the residence of Punjab School Education Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad and offered condolences to him on the death of his mother.

Those who visited the minister's residence included Provincial Ministers Mian Yawar Zaman, Tahir Khalil Sindhu, Adviser to CM Rana Maqbool, Punjab Education Foundation Chairman Qamar-Ul-Islam Raja, MNA Sajid Naseem and MPA Irfan Lalika.