Madurai: Two kids rescued from unlicensed stone quarry

Madurai: Two children, who were rescued from an unlicensed stone quarry near Kolar in Karanataka, were produced before the district collector Veera Raghava Rao on Tuesday.

A couple Ellappan and Puspha from Arumbanur village near Madurai, who managed to escape from the quarry recently, had filed a petition with the collector stating that their children were under the custody of the quarry owner Eswaran.

The collector immediately sent the Madurai District Child Protection Unit members to rescue the children from the quarry. When the team members reached the quarry, they found the two children Swathi (8) and Rana (5) were forced to stay in a small room. 

After rescuing the children on Monday, the DCPU members produced them at the Child Welfare Committee at Kolar and brought them back to Madurai.

However, the quarry owner Eswaran managed to escape from the place.
 Ellappan and Puspha were forced to work as bonded labourers in the quarry. The quarry owner Eswaran promised to pay '5 for breaking stones for very five feet when Ellappan was recruited three years ago. In a day, Eswaran would break stones for 150 feet in the quarry. “However if I ask him to pay my salary of Rs 750, he paid only 100,” said Ellappan.

 If Ellappan dared to ask pending salary, Eswaran and his relatives would beat the couple with wood logs. Eswaran also never allowed the family to leave to their native place. “Recently when we asked him to permit us to attend the death ceremony of our close relatives, he only allowed me to go,” said Ellappan.

On January 5, when the couple approached him for money to attend the 16th day death ceremony of their close relative, he refused to give them. When the couple told Eswaran that they were underpaid for the last three years, he  along with his relatives beat them.Unable to withstand the torture, the couple escaped from the place next day leaving their children in the place because they were kept in separate room. With the help of district legal aid authority, they approached the collector. The DCPU handed over the children to the Child Welfare Committee, Madurai.