Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, December 11
Kuldeep Singh, the owner of HK Forgings, Sangal Sohal, has been booked for employing six child labourers at his factory in Jalandhar.
While the district administration maintained that six children had been rescued, in the raid on Thursday, an FIR lodged on the issue clarified that nine children, pursuing the hazardous occupation at a hand tools factory, were rescued on Thursday afternoon. Three of the nine children were later found to be adults. An FIR was lodged under Section 14 (1) of the Child Labour Prohibition and Regulation Act (1986) at the Maqsoodan police station on Friday.
As many as six children, including a girl, were rescued by the teams of the district administration from a hand tools factory in Wariana, Leather Complex, on the Jalandhar-Kapurthala road. Acting on a tip-off from NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a team headed by SDM-II Rahul Sindhu, accompanied by the police, reached the factory.
While the administration have ruled out any child trafficking scenario with the case in the district at present, the five boys rescued from the factory have been sent to Children’s Home at Hoshiarpur, while the girl is at the Gandhi Vanita Ashram in Jalandhar.
This is the second such raid in the district amid the Covid pandemic. In the first raid, held in August by the police, a total of 47 child labourers were rescued.
