Activists of a voluntary organization in Sambalpur rescued a 13-year-old boy from Trivandrum (Kerala) on Sunday, a few months after he had gone missing. He had gone to work in a brick kiln in Andhra Pradesh with his parents and four siblings.
The boy, identified as Basudev Luha from Jhanged village under Bargarh’s Attabira police station limits, was spotted by a vendor loitering near Trivandrum railway station. Child Line activists in Trivandrum picked him up after getting the information. The boy was brought to Sambalpur on Sunday after a relative identified him from his photograph.
Basudev requested the administration to bring back his parents as well, who according to him are working as bonded labourers in a kiln near Shikandarabad in Andhara Pradesh, along with his brothers and sisters. The boy said they were taken to the kiln by a local agent, Panchanan Gatiapali from Attabira police station, with an assurance of getting huge sums of money.
Basudev said he decided to flee when the kiln owner did not give them promised rewards. “When he started torturing us, I managed to escape and reached the railway station in an auto rickshaw. But instead of coming to Odisha, I boarded a train that took me to Kerala,” the boy said.
