Baikuntha Majhi, a migrant labour of Mantri Tarei village of Khariar block, died on way back to his home on Thursday at Vishakapatanam. Baikuntha with his wife Sumitra and three kids had gone to Hyderabad to work in a brick kiln. labour broker Ganesh Bag of the same village had assured them of a payment of Rs30,000 on arrival at the work site. After they reached the destination, the couple was engaged in brick making, but they were not paid their dues.
“When my husband fell ill after a few days of working in the kiln, we were forced to leave the place. They put us in a Vishakapatnam-bound train. My husband died on the platform of Vishakapatnam when we got down at the station,” said Sumitra. “When my elder daughter cried inconsolably, I took the children to another platform to make them silent. When I returned after some time I could not locate the body. No one understood my language; so I could not ask anyone about the body,” she added.
The relatives of Baikuntha informed that they had subsequently inquired to know about the death from the railway police. “The railway police got a cell number from the pocket of Baikuntha and called us. We went there and brought the body after post mortem,” said Netra Majhi, uncle of Baikuntha. Baikuntha was not ill when he left home. We don’t know what went wrong there, said Baikuntha’s father. Khariar BDO Narayan Chandra Naik assured that Sumitra would be provided Rs2,000 under Harishchandra scheme and further Rs20,000 under the National Family Benefit Scheme.
