Baghpat District Administration Accused of Shielding Brick Kiln Owners

Baghpat District Administration Under Fire for Mishandling Bonded Labour Rescues

In the heart of western Uttar Pradesh, beyond the smog and red dust of its brick kilns, hundreds of families remain trapped in a world that India outlawed nearly fifty years ago. They shape and bake millions of bricks that build other people’s homes — but have none of their own. Promised fair wages, they end up working without pay, their movements controlled by threats, debt, and violence.

This two part investigation follows the stories of workers from Baghpat — from their escape and partial “rescue” to their ongoing struggle for justice in the courts. It reveals how a system meant to abolish bonded labour has instead been hollowed out by administrative neglect and local complicity. 

Officials Turn Away as Workers Beg for Help

When Johny broke free from the Maa Bhagwati Brick Field in Baghpat, his bare feet bleeding as he ran through the fields, he thought the worst was behind him. But what awaited him was another battle — this time, against an indifferent system that appeared more sympathetic to the perpetrators than to the victims.

For nearly five months, Johny and his family lived and worked inside the kiln, making thousands of bricks a day for wages that never came. He had been promised ₹600 for every 1,000 bricks — an amount that could have supported his family back home. Instead, he found himself trapped in a cycle of unpaid labour, abuse, and threats of violence.

“He said he would shoot me if I left”

Johny remembers the threat vividly. When he asked for his dues in mid-May, the kiln owner warned him: if he tried to leave, he’d be shot. Armed guards kept constant watch over the workers, ensuring no one could escape. “We weren’t allowed to step out. Even to fetch water, someone followed us,” Johny told The Probe.

It wasn’t just Johny. Dozens of other labourers — men, women, and children — were living under the same conditions, trapped by advance payments they had long repaid through months of forced work. Many had come from nearby villages, lured by promises of fair wages. All ended up in bondage.

When Johny finally managed to flee on May 19, it was because the kiln owner had stepped out for lunch. He ran until he reached Delhi, where he could breathe freely for the first time in months. But his freedom came with a painful choice — his wife and four-year-old son were still trapped at the kiln.

“I couldn’t leave them there,” he said. “But I had to go for help. No one else was coming for us.”

A Rescue in Name Only

After The Probe reported Johny’s ordeal, local authorities from the Baghpat district administration finally visited the kiln on May 21. They rescued Johny and his immediate family — and no one else.

According to Johny, around fifteen families remained behind. “The officials came, spoke to me, and told me I could leave,” he said. “But they didn’t even arrange transport. I had to pay for the vehicle myself.”

The rescue team, led by a Deputy Tehsildar and a labour inspector, treated Johny’s case as an isolated incident. The other workers, who pleaded to be freed, were told to submit written applications if they wanted to be rescued.

But most of them were illiterate, and none were allowed to leave the premises to file such complaints. “They said, ‘If you can write an application like Johny, we can help,’” recalled one of the workers. “How can we write anything when we’re not allowed to step out?”

“We were not rescued”

Ajay, a young labourer at the same kiln, described a situation of unrelenting exploitation. He had arrived at the kiln with his elderly parents around Holi, hoping for work. Months later, none of them had been paid. “Every day we asked for our wages,” he said. “Every day, the owner said, ‘Tomorrow.’ That tomorrow never came.”

When officials visited the site during Johny’s rescue, Ajay and others tried to tell them their stories. “We said we haven’t been paid, we want to go home,” he said. “They told us to go to Delhi if we wanted any help. How can we go to Delhi when we don’t even have money for food?”

For Ajay and the dozens still trapped, the kiln is nothing less than a prison. “There are no toilets, no electricity, nothing. We just work, eat dry rotis, and sleep on the ground. This place is like a jail,” he said.

“This is slavery in the open”

Human rights lawyer Vinod Kumar Singh, who was present during the rescue, said the officials ignored clear signs of bonded labour. “There were about 40 to 50 people there, all saying they hadn’t been paid and weren’t being allowed to leave,” Singh said. “The officials had the authority to rescue everyone. Instead, they picked one family and left the rest.”

Singh called it “a mockery of the rescue process.” “Under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, officials don’t need written complaints to act,” he explained. “The labourers were right there, pleading in front of them. What more proof did they need?”

Nirmal Gorana, convenor of the National Campaign Committee for Eradication of Bonded Labour, confirmed that around sixty people were trapped at the kiln, including children. “They were promised ₹600 per thousand bricks but got nothing,” he said. “Sometimes they were given ₹500 or ₹1,000 for rations — just enough to keep them alive.”

Gorana described how several workers had tried to leave in March but were stopped. “One arranged a vehicle, but the owner sent it back. The message was clear — you can’t leave.”

The Administration Looks Away

When The Probe reached out to Abhishek Kumar, the Tehsildar of Baghpat, he distanced himself from the rescue. “The Deputy Tehsildar and labour inspector went. I wasn’t involved,” he said.

Deputy Tehsildar Raghavender Pandey maintained that written applications were mandatory for any action. “We can’t take suo motu steps,” he said. But legal experts say this interpretation of the law is wrong — the Act empowers officials to rescue bonded labourers even without formal complaints.

Johny may have escaped the kiln, but the chains around his community remain. The government’s partial rescue left dozens still trapped, their pleas unheard. 

Another Rescue, Another Betrayal – Surender’s Fight for Justice

What happened to Johny and the trapped workers at Maa Bhagwati Brick Field was not an isolated case of cruelty. In Baghpat, bonded labour is not the exception—it is the pattern. Barely two months before Johny’s ordeal surfaced, another rescue operation in the same district had already exposed the rot in the system. The victims then were 18 bonded labourers, including women and children, held captive at the BBF Brick Kiln in Bilochpura village. Their story, too, was one of violence, deceit, and official complicity.

It began with a desperate letter. On February 22, 2025, Surender Kumar, one of the labourers at the BBF kiln, smuggled out a hand-written plea to the District Magistrate. In it, he described how 18 people from five Dalit families had been trafficked to the kiln on the promise of good wages after receiving an advance payment of ₹10,000 each. Once there, they were locked into a life of unpaid work and physical abuse.

His letter should have triggered swift government action under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. Instead, what followed three days later on February 25 was a sham of a rescue—one that turned violent and nearly cost people their lives.

When Rescuers Stood Still

The so-called rescue team that arrived at the kiln consisted of a Labour Enforcement Officer, a policeman, and another unidentified official. According to multiple witnesses, they went straight to the kiln owner, Ravinder Rana, and his son Abhimanyu, before even speaking to the labourers. “They talked privately for a while,” Surender said. “Then they came to us and asked us to sign some blank sheets.”

When the workers refused to sign without knowing what was written, the officials allegedly threatened to abandon the operation. “They said if we didn’t sign, we wouldn’t be rescued,” Surender recounted. The workers eventually complied, afraid they would be left behind.

But their ordeal was far from over. As they began moving toward the vehicles they had hired themselves—because the officials refused to arrange transport—Ravinder Rana, his son, and several associates launched a brutal attack. They hurled bricks, swung iron rods, and shouted casteist slurs. “They hit my brother so hard his hand broke,” Surender said. “Women were bleeding. My head was split open.”

The rescue team did nothing. “They stood there, watching,” Surender said. “Not one of them tried to stop the attackers or protect us.”

A Struggle for Recognition

After escaping the kiln, the survivors reached out to every official they could—police, the Labour Department, even the District Magistrate. But their statements were recorded only on March 3, after continuous pleading. Shockingly, the same labour officer accused of mishandling the rescue—Arvind Madhesia—was present during those depositions.

For over a month, no police case was registered. It was only after The Probe published its exposé on March 30 that the Baghpat police finally lodged an FIR. But even that, activists say, was a diluted version of the truth.

The FIR named kiln owner Ravinder Rana, his son Abhimanyu, their associate Bittu, and six to seven unidentified men. The charges included rioting, assault, and caste-based abuse under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

But crucial sections were missing—particularly those from the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986, despite clear evidence that children had been forced to work at the kiln.

The omission, according to human rights experts, was no accident. “It’s a deliberate attempt to water down the case,” said Nirmal Gorana. “They’re trying to make it look like a small fight between employers and employees, not a crime of bondage and child exploitation.”

“The Police Tried to Rewrite My Statement”

Surender, on whose complaint the FIR was based, told The Probe that he was pressured to censor his account while giving his statement. “When I started writing about bonded labour and child workers, the police told me to remove it,” he said. “They said, ‘Don’t write too much. Just say there was a fight.’ I asked them, ‘Whose statement is this—mine or yours?’ They were threatening me.”

He showed The Probe a video he had secretly recorded while at the kiln. It shows children stacking bricks alongside adults, including his own sons. “We had been working since January 3. None of us were allowed to leave,” he said. “We were slaves. There’s proof of it, but the police don’t want it on record.”

It was only after he called the Sub-Divisional Magistrate during the FIR process that the officers reluctantly allowed him to finish his statement. Even then, the key bonded labour provisions were excluded from the final report.

Promises and Paperwork

Following The Probe’s reporting, SDM Avinash Tripathi assured on March 31 that release orders would be issued immediately. A week later, he confirmed that they had been prepared. But two months later, the workers say they have still received nothing. When contacted again, Tripathi claimed the paperwork was “stuck in the labour department.”

That bureaucratic stalling has left the survivors in limbo—neither enslaved nor truly free. Without release certificates, they are not legally recognised as victims of bonded labour, cutting them off from compensation and protection under the law.

From Johny’s kiln to Surender’s, the pattern is unmistakable: labourers lured with advances, trapped without pay, rescued only after media exposure, and then forgotten. In both cases, officials either looked away or actively weakened the legal process.

“The law against bonded labour has existed for nearly 50 years,” Gorana said. “But in Baghpat, it’s treated like a suggestion, not a mandate. If the state itself refuses to uphold the law, who will protect the poor?”

The registration of an FIR may look like progress on paper. But for Surender and the others still waiting for their release certificates, freedom remains theoretical — another promise lost in official files gathering dust in the Baghpat labour office.

Baghpat Bonded Labourers Move Court After Months of Inaction

The long battle for justice for bonded labourers rescued from brick kilns in Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh has now reached the courtroom. After months of appeals to district officials and the National Human Rights Commission went unanswered, 22 rescued workers — along with the National Campaign Committee for Eradication of Bonded Labour (NCCEBL) — have filed a writ petition seeking the intervention of the Allahabad High Court.

The petition, led by NCCEBL convenor Nirmal Gorana, accuses the Baghpat district administration of systematically failing to uphold the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. It demands the immediate issuance of release certificates, the recovery of unpaid wages, and full rehabilitation support for the freed labourers — rights guaranteed under Indian law but routinely denied in practice.

“We were rescued, but never really freed”

Among the petitioners are Joni, Shalu, and Shiv Kumar, three former bonded labourers who were rescued in Surpur village, Baghpat. The kiln, owned by Vikas, Vijendra, and Vipin, allegedly confined the workers under brutal conditions. Though local officials rescued them, the labourers say their “freedom” never materialised on paper.

Under the law, once a bonded labourer is rescued, the District Magistrate (DM) must issue a release certificate confirming their status as freed persons. This certificate is the key to accessing compensation, rehabilitation, and social protection. But according to the petition, no such certificates were ever issued — leaving the workers in limbo, unable to claim government support or rebuild their lives.

The petition states: “The District Magistrate is duty-bound to issue release certificates immediately and ensure economic rehabilitation. But despite repeated representations, the administration has failed to discharge its legal responsibilities.”

From Bilochpura to Surpur: A Pattern of Neglect

The petition highlights that the Baghpat case is not isolated. Labourers rescued from another kiln — Bharat Brick Fieldin Bilochpura — were also denied release orders. Those workers, whose plight was first reported in The Probe’s March 2025 investigation, faced similar violence during their rescue. When the labour department visited the site, they were allegedly attacked by goons hired by the kiln owner. Injured workers were hospitalised, yet no action was taken against the perpetrators.

Even after one of the labourers filed an FIR, the police failed to include sections of the Bonded Labour Act or the Child Labour Act, treating the assault as a minor dispute rather than a case of modern slavery. The petition argues that this omission reflects a “deliberate attempt to shield the kiln owners.”

Pleas Ignored. Letters Unanswered

Between April and July 2025, the NCCEBL sent a series of letters to the District Magistrate of Baghpat, urging immediate issuance of release certificates and payment of wages. Copies were also sent to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). Despite multiple reminders — on April 17, April 23, May 17, May 21, June 2, June 28, and July 24 — no action was taken.

The petition states that officials not only failed to release the certificates but also withheld copies of enquiry reports from the victims. “Without these documents,” it reads, “the bonded labourers are deprived of all benefits of rehabilitation and remain vulnerable to further exploitation.”

“Our Tractors, Our Lives — All Taken Away”

In addition to the denial of legal documents, some labourers allege that their tractors and other belongings remain in the illegal possession of kiln owners. Despite repeated requests, the administration has not helped them recover their property. Section 19 of the Bonded Labour Act mandates restoration of such confiscated assets, but this too remains unfulfilled.

Meanwhile, the workers say they are facing starvation. With the powerful kiln owners allegedly intimidating local employers, no one is willing to hire the rescued labourers. Many belong to Dalit families with no land or stable housing, making rehabilitation a matter of survival, not convenience.

Legal Action: “Justice Cannot be Left to Chance”

The petition, filed as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), urges the High Court to issue a writ of mandamus directing the Baghpat administration to:

1. Issue release certificates to all 22 labourers.

2. Provide copies of the enquiry reports conducted after rescue.

3. Ensure payment of pending wages with penal interest.

4. Return confiscated assets such as tractors to their rightful owners.

5. Guarantee safety, security, and rehabilitation for all petitioners.

The plea invokes key constitutional rights under Articles 14, 21, and 23, as well as landmark Supreme Court judgments — Neeraja Chaudhary v. State of Madhya Pradesh (1984) and Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India (1984) — both of which held that the State must not only identify and release bonded labourers but also ensure their full rehabilitation.

Quoting the apex court, the petition reminds the administration: “It is not enough merely to identify and release bonded labourers — they must be rehabilitated, or they will be driven back into serfdom.”