BANGALORE, JUNE 27: The Karnataka government had directed the police and the labour department officials to keep a strict vigil on granite quarries to detect whether the banned bonded labour was being practised, Minister of State for Finance, M Shivanna, said today.The government would not spare those who were keeping the bonded labour practice `alive' and the guilty would be severely punished, he said here.He was reacting to the recent release of five bonded labourers by farmers Association activists from a quarry at Angarahally in Srirangapatna taluka of Mandya district. The labourers had said they had been kept chained for three years by the quarry contractor for not returning borrowed money.He said four of the accused, who had chained five scheduled tribe labourers and forced them to work in the quarry, had been arrested and cases under Prevention of Atrocities on SC and ST Act booked against them.The government has decided to allot sites to 23 families of Angarahally village and provide financial aid of Rs 40,000 from the social welfare department to construct houses, he said.Meanwhile, The SC and ST Development Corporation has come forward to sanction loans to these families to take up self-employment ventures.The Chief Minister, S M Krishna, has also decided to sanction Rs 25,000 to each of the five bonded labourers from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund.Shivanna alleged that one of the accused was a hardcore J D Sand that several leaders of the party were aware of the inhuman practice,but had never raised the issue.
