'SLAVE LABOUR' EXPORTS FROM INDIA MUST STOP

THE story of insensitive governments and a brutal labour trafficking international order is being repeated ad nauseum.

-  GURBIR SINGH

Some clucking noises are made when there are body bags. Then it is business as usual.

In recent days, there has again been a spate of tragedies. On 12 June, 45 Indians, mostly from Tamil Nadu and Kerala, were among those killed in a fire in a residential building in the Kuwaiti city of Mangaf. Lodged in an overcrowded conditions, most of the workers died not being able to escape the fumes as the terrace was locked.

Minister of state V K Singh posing with the returning coffins on board an IAF aircraft, only heighted the bitterness of these deaths.

Around the same time, two Indian nationals - Hemil Mangukiya of Surat, and Mohammad Asfan from Hyderabad, hired as helpers for the Russian Army, were killed in the Ukraine fighting. Hundreds of Indians have been lured into seemingly peacetime jobs in Russia, and then forced to undergo army training and fight on the frontline.

In another tragic case a few days ago, a farm labourer, Satnam Singh, died after he was left unattended with a severed arm on the way side in Latina, Italy. Latina, a rural area south of Rome, is home to tens of thousands of Indian migrant workers. Italy's labour minister Marina Caderone, speaking in Parliament, described the incident as an "act of barbarity", but offered little hope to the racist exploitation of Indians in these farms.

The Indian government is aware of the gravity of the situation. Take the killing fields in Ukraine. Reports first emerged in February and March of a few Indians killed fighting for the Russian Army.